Snakes and Ladders
by Sheriff1985
Summary: **SEQUEL TO LION, EAGLE, BADGER, SNAKE** It's the start of the summer holidays for the first-years, but with the end of the school year, however, there are just as many new questions as they have answers. What links the Wild Hunt and the Old Welsh Magic? What is the full story of Glyn's connection with Owain Glyndwr? Will Professor Tregeagle recover to teach DADA?
1. Convalescence

**A/N: This is the third book I've written in the _Lion, Eagle, Badger, Snake_ Universe. It's set in the 2006/07 calendar year and follows directly on from _Lion, Eagle, Badger, Snake_ \- you really need to have read that one to follow the new characters and the key plot points in this one, so please do head over to my author page and check that one out. There's also _Snake Bites_ , set in 2017/18, as my Universe collides with Albus' first-year (and a lot of swearing).**

 **Enjoy (and let me know what you think...)**

* * *

The distinctive form of a long-eared owl spread its wings wide as it neared the quiet Devon village of Chudleigh, allowing the draughts of wind that blew onshore to guide it down towards the roofs below. The bird's yellow eyes picked out the nondescript form of 11, Manaton Close, and the diamond piping that covered the glass of an upstairs window. The owl tucked in its wings, swooping downwards to perch beside the pane and begin to tap, insistently, on the frame.

On the other side of the glass, a twelve-year-old boy stirred in his bed, blinking his eyes open as the noise grew louder. 'I'm coming, I'm coming...' Greg Bennett muttered, though he knew no one could hear. He dragged a set of dark blue curtains open, searching for the source of the noise, before his eyes fell on the owl. 'Hello there, Marazion.' The boy smiled, unfastening a latch on the window and allowing the bird to hop through with a contented chirrup. 'Have a treat,' he reached for a bowl that sat further along the windowsill, offering a handful of small biscuits to the owl, which seemed content to accept the food. In return, the twelve-year-old unfastened a small strip of parchment from the bird's leg, trotting back over to his bed to digest its contents.

'Miss Pomfrey will Apparate you in,' Greg read aloud. 'She says she'll meet you at two o'clock.' He squinted, searching for the untidy scrawl of a signature that sat in the bottom corner of the paper, finally picking out the sender's name – "Josh".

Greg turned the paper over, wondering for a moment whether to scribble a reply, before concluding that the bird wouldn't be able to return before he himself arrived. 'You can go, Marazion,' he called out, watching the bird step back through the open window before taking off into the morning sky. Greg smoothed the parchment out, placing it on top of a small stack of similar letters on his bedside table, before lifting a hard-bound book from the floor next to his bed.

The twelve-year-old ran his hand through an untidy blond fringe, stretching out over his duvet as he flicked through the heavy volume to a page titled "House Quidditch", and begun to read it out. 'Gryffindor's grasp on the House Quidditch title was loosened in spectacular fashion this summer, following an unprecedented penalty shoot-out defeat against a Slytherin side that counted four first-years amongst their number.' A wide grin spread across the boy's face as he read the sentence again, recalling the moment when his friend Lucas Brand had scored the goal that confirmed their team's victory. Nobody had given the team a chance going into the season, and not without reason, as the previous year had seen Slytherin finish bottom of the standings by a record margin, but – with the help of a little good fortune on the way – the tables had turned.

The letter that had arrived that morning, however, had not come from a team mate, or even a fellow Slytherin, but from a boy who had spent much of the year at odds with Greg and his friends, until the end of the summer term at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It had taken a chain of supernatural events to break the hostility, as the Wild Hunt, a battalion of hostile spirits, had attacked the school, and – more specifically – Jacob Tregeagle, the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, and Joshua's father. With this threat hanging over their school, the first-years had managed to overcome their House rivalry and work together towards defeating the Hunt.

Joshua's father had not recovered completely from the attack, though, and it was for this reason that the two Tregeagles remained at the school. At least, this was what Joshua had said on the final day of term when he had tentatively invited Greg to stay at the castle: a request that Greg had accepted without hesitation. Now, however, as he re-read the story of Slytherin's season, and remembered the way that the Gryffindor children had treated his own House, not to mention a number of his other friends, for much of the year, he found himself having second thoughts.

Greg flicked through his copy of the school yearbook, searching for the pages that held pictures of the pupils themselves, and their snapshot memories of the year. He knew the Slytherins had filled a page with a photograph of the celebrations after the Quidditch Cup playoff, but he had never bothered to read the other Houses' entries.

'Gryffindor,' Greg read, 'Ciaran Abercrombie,' his eyes picked out a picture of a sandy-haired boy, who waved shyly back. 'Best Memory: making so many new friends from all the other Houses.' He looked down the page. 'Spencer Dawlish,' a boy with spiky black hair barely looked back out of the book. 'Best Memory: making the right choice.' Greg sighed, looking back to the boy's forlorn expression. 'Joshua Tregeagle,' a boy with dull, mousy hair and a rash of freckles stared back despondently, above a blank space where Greg knew his favourite memory ought to lie.

Greg shook his head, shutting the book and pushing himself up from his bed, gazing into a mirror on the far wall of his bedroom, and wondering what he would have written had he needed to come up with his own favourite memory. He crossed his hands over his chest, covering the scattered freckles that that splashed over his shoulders. 'Maybe that day when the Gryffindors started to trust me,' he thought aloud, 'or the day I met Glyn,' he wondered. 'I don't think I'd have put that down, though. Maybe I would have put the Quidditch final.'

He pulled open a drawer, grabbing the first t-shirt he could find from the top of a pile, and trudged slowly downstairs to the kitchen. 'Morning, Mum,' he offered, greeting his mother as she bustled past.

'Morning, Greg,' Elaine Bennett echoed, busily cleaning one of the kitchen worktops as her only son reached for a glass of orange juice before settling around a circular table in the centre of the room. 'Everything packed? Do you know how you're getting there?'

'Yes, Mum,' the twelve-year-old nodded placidly, swallowing a mouthful of his drink. 'Someone's coming to collect me at two,' he answered, before pre-empting the next question, 'and everything's packed.' He smiled.

'Who is it you're going to stay with, again?' Elaine enquired.

'Josh Tregeagle,' Greg answered. 'His Dad works at the school,' he didn't expand on the events of the last weeks of term. 'He's a teacher.'

'That's nice,' his mother nodded. 'Is he coming to pick you up?'

'No,' Greg shuddered, grateful for a moment that his mother had her back to him. 'He's busy,' the boy lied, before deciding to add a garnish of truth. 'That's why I'm going, to keep Josh company.' Greg swallowed another mouthful of orange juice, reflecting on how easily he had deceived his mother. _Slytherin_ , he thought to himself, before shaking his head, _but so what?_

A sharp crack, a similar sound to a car backfiring, signalled the arrival of Poppy Pomfrey, the school nurse, and Greg's route back to his boarding school, a couple of minutes before two o'clock. 'Good afternoon,' she greeted Elaine Bennett primly as Greg's mother opened the front door. 'A pleasure to meet you.'

'You too,' Elaine answered, introducing herself. 'I assume you are here for Greg?

The nurse nodded, glancing around the small house's hallway. 'Is he ready?' She adjusted the collar of her smart, black dress as the twelve-year-old appeared, changed into a dark pair of jeans and a simple white t-shirt, dragging a black carryall down the staircase. 'You have everything?'

'Yes,' Greg answered, mechanically. 'I packed last night.'

'Excellent,' Nurse Pomfrey acknowledged, 'and have you Apparated before?'

'Once,' the boy answered, with a shiver.

The nurse dug into a pocket on the front of her dress, fishing for a small, orange tablet. 'For Apparition sickness,' she explained, offering it to the twelve-year-old, who smiled, self-consciously, as he took it.

'Apparation?' Elaine Bennett questioned, abruptly. 'What's Apparition?'

'Magical transportation,' the nurse answered, matter-of-factly, 'straightforward once you get used to it, but a little...' she paused, searching for the right word, '...unsettling for first-timers.' She held out her hand towards Greg, who turned back towards his mother, throwing his arms around her.

'Bye, Mum,' he breathed, 'see you next week.'

'Goodbye, Greg,' she returned the boy's hug, kissing her son on the forehead. 'Don't do anything I wouldn't.'

'I'll be good,' the boy blushed, returning to the nurse and taking her offered hand, before the two of them vanished with another loud crack, reappearing a few moments later – and several hundred miles away – beside an imposing pair of iron gates.

'You can't Apparate into Hogwarts, Greg,' the nurse explained, taking out her wand and pointing it towards the gates as she whispered a complex set of incantations. 'Security,' she added, leading the twelve-year-old onto a wide gravelled track that led up to the castle itself. Greg, still feeling a little queasy after the Apparition, didn't trust himself to both answer and keep his dinner inside his stomach, and so settled for a curt nod, following without complaint as Madam Pomfrey led him to a door near the base of Gryffindor tower.

'Joshua,' the nurse announced, peering into an untidy bedroom as she scuttled through the doorway, 'your friend is here.'

'Greg!' The blond boy heard his name being called before he saw its speaker, as Joshua Tregeagle sprung to his feet, knocking a pile of spellbooks to the ground as he hurtled to greet the newcomer, only to slow down as he came face to face with the Slytherin. 'Hi,' his face paled as he swallowed, looking down at the bottoms of Greg's jeans, and suddenly reminding the other boy of his melancholy yearbook photograph.

'Hey,' Greg smiled as warmly as he could, holding his hand up for his friend to weakly high-five. 'You alright?'

'I guess,' Joshua shrugged, turning back to his bedroom and navigating a treacherous path back to his unmade bed. His hair was tangled and unkempt, and the unbuttoned cotton shirt that he wore above a pair of knee-length shorts didn't seem to have received much more care.

'Has Spencer been yet?' Greg asked casually, but the other boy shook his head, glumly.

'Not till the end of August,' Joshua answered, sinking back onto his crumpled duvet. 'It's just been Miss Pomfrey,' he nodded towards the doorway, 'looking after Dad.'

'What have you done?' Greg asked, glancing around the untidy room, from the stack of spellbooks that Joshua had knocked over in the haste to greet his visitor, a broomstick covered in an apparently neglected pile of Quidditch padding, and a scattered set of gobstones.

Joshua shrugged, before looking away to gaze out of his window and onto the school's grounds. 'Not much,' he answered, quietly.

Greg hesitated, before sitting down on the end of the other boy's bed, just as his friend turned back to him in a rush. 'What was I meant to do?' He gasped, as his eyes began to burn, and though Greg shook his head, Joshua's outburst continued. 'It's been nearly two weeks,' he snapped, 'no one's been here! Not even a house elf!' He gestured to the chaotic condition of the room around him, and Greg found himself remembering the state in which he had found Joshua in the school library on the day when the two boys' friendship had begun.

'How much have you been eating?' He paraphrased one of the first questions he'd asked the Gryffindor that afternoon, glancing at his friend's thin waist as he spoke.

Joshua looked away again.

'Josh?' Greg pressed. 'I'm serious,' he looked back at the other boy's pale chest, where a scattering of freckles stood out over his ribcage.

'I didn't like what the house elf brought,' Joshua dodged the question feebly.

'Well, you know where the kitchen is!' The Slytherin was surprised at the force in his voice, but the other boy shook his head, sadly.

'I can't remember how to get in,' he sniffed, a tear beginning to roll down his cheek.

'Bloody hell...' Greg muttered, scrambling along the bed to sit beside his friend. 'You should have said,' he held an arm around Joshua's shoulders, 'in one of your letters. I'd have told you,' he chided, 'I'd even have come up earlier. Why didn't you?'

Joshua shrugged, still avoiding his friend's gaze. 'Don't know.'

Greg took a deep breath, before calmly making a suggestion. 'Gryffindor Pride?'

The other boy snorted, before shaking his head sadly. 'If that was it, I would never have invited you in the first place,' he sighed. 'I wish we never got split into Houses like this. I hated you for almost all the year, just because the Hat said Slytherin.'

Greg swallowed, but he didn't respond. He had known that the boy's last sentence was true – and indeed he had felt the same way in return – but, for some reason, hearing it said aloud made it feel altogether more personal.

'I don't hate you any more,' Joshua filled the silence, turning back to his friend and brushing a matted forelock away from his eyes.

'Good,' Greg managed a thin smile, 'it'd have been a bit weird if you'd asked me to stay and you still did...'

Joshua's eyes sparkled for a moment, as a thin smile edged across his face. 'Your jokes are worse than Kennedy's,' the Gryffindor recalled the seventh-year Ravenclaw boy who had taught part of their History of Magic course the previous term.

Greg stuck his tongue out. 'If you're gonna be like that, I might just go home again,' he tried to keep a straight face, but failed to prevent a grin from breaking out as the other boy elbowed him in the side. 'You're right though,' he counselled, 'but the Houses don't have to be like that, do they?'

Joshua shook his head. 'I wish they weren't.'

'Well, let's make it that way,' Greg insisted. 'By the time we're prefects, it won't matter what House you're in.'

'Okay,' Joshua nodded, resolutely, and Greg smiled brightly.

'Shall we go to the kitchens, then?' The blond boy sprung to his feet, carefully ensuring he would land between the debris on his friend's bedroom floor. 'Pay attention this time, so you know how to get in!'

Joshua rolled his eyes, before dragging himself to his feet and following his friend to the doorway. 'Yes, sir,' he muttered, and Greg laughed.

'It's the _pear_ ,' the Slytherin emphasised the name of the fruit as he reached out to stroke the portrait that guarded the kitchens' entrance. 'You've got to tickle it!' Greg bent down as the painting swung backwards, allowing the two boys through, to be greeted by a swarm of house-elves.

'Hello,' Greg raised his voice in greeting. 'My friend,' he paused, emphasising the word and causing the other boy to laugh as he remembered the first time the two of them had visited the kitchens, 'hasn't eaten properly in, like, two weeks. Make him the best dinner he's ever had.' Greg sat down on a squat stool beside a worktop-come-table on one side of the kitchen, and waited for Joshua to join him. 'This time I know I really mean it,' he grinned, watching the house-elves busy themselves with the task he had given them, planting a plateful of steaming cuts of meat, garnished with a generous helping of fresh salad, in front of the other boy.

'Thank you,' Joshua mumbled, through a mouthful of steak, and the elves beamed.

'Can we be getting anything for you, master?' The lead elf turned to Greg.

'Oh, no,' he hesitated as he saw the elf's expression falter. 'Well,' he corrected himself, 'just a glass of lemonade, please.'

No sooner than he had asked for it, a glass – full to the brim – had appeared on the table by his side.

'Thanks,' Greg smiled, leaving the elves to return to whatever they had been doing before the two boys had disturbed them, and allowing Joshua to finish his meal uninterrupted. 'Good?' He ventured, a little more than a quarter of an hour later, as his friend polished off the last of the meat.

'Yes,' Joshua nodded, wiping the juices away from his mouth with the back of his hand. 'Awesome,' he grinned.

Greg laughed. 'Cool,' he swallowed the last mouthful of his lemonade. 'Did you have any plans for the rest of the day?'

Joshua shook his head. 'I never really thought about it,' he admitted. 'I suppose we could explore the castle,' he offered, 'all the places no one ever goes... there's meant to be secret passages and everything.'

'Yeah, alright,' Greg smiled. 'Why not?'

'Hey, Josh, you live here!' Greg coughed through a mouthful of dust as the two children stumbled out of a cupboard that Greg thought couldn't have been opened in more than a century. 'How come you didn't know that was full of junk?'

'Do you know how big this castle is?' The other boy laughed through a cough of his own. 'I bet there's bits even McGonagall doesn't know about properly...'

Greg shrugged. 'Do you think anyone knows about every room at Hogwarts?'

'Maybe,' Joshua led his friend up a wide staircase, 'but who cares? It's not exploring if you know where you're going, is it? Wouldn't it be cool if we found somewhere that none of the other kids knew about...?'

Greg nodded, enthusiastically, 'as long as we could find it again...' he paused for a moment's thought. 'Things keep changing as well, like the staircases, don't they?'

'Yeah,' Joshua recalled. 'We got so lost once in the first week of term... We went one way, then we realised it was a dead end, so we tried to go back, but then the staircase had gone all together.'

'Sucks to be a first-year,' Greg observed, 'unless you don't have to muck around with all these bloody staircases, and have a nice, sensible _dungeon_ to spend your time in...'

'Piss off,' Joshua laughed, leading the other boy along a wide corridor on the seventh floor. 'It's a freezing cold dungeon, isn't it?'

'We've got these things called fireplaces,' Greg slowed his voice to a patronising pace. 'You might have heard of them,' he smirked, 'and we can turn them off, too, so we can sleep at night when it's hot as well.'

'Whatever,' Joshua ignored his friend's jibe, heading further along the corridor, only to turn back and retrace his steps when he noticed the other boy hadn't followed. 'Come on, Greg,' he nagged, 'that's just a dumb painting of St Barnabas, trying to train trolls to do ballet. I wanna see what's in the East Tower.'

'Fine...' Greg muttered, turning to follow his friend, only to stop dead in his tracks as a wide door appeared in the wall on his left. 'Um, Josh,' he called down the corridor.

'What?' The Gryffindor turned round. 'Greg... you said...' he tailed off, noticing the doorway that had made the other boy call his name. 'That wasn't there before,' his voice wavered. 'Was it?'

Greg shook his head.

'Shall we go in?' Joshua suggested, but the other boy baulked at his friend's idea.

'Are you sure?' Greg shuddered. 'We don't know what's in there. It just appeared as you walked past it...'

'What's the worst thing it could be?' Joshua shot back.

Greg raised his eyebrows. 'I don't even want to think about the answer to that question.'

'Alright,' Joshua nodded, slowly, retracing his steps again to stand beside his friend. 'Wands out,' he proposed. 'We'll go in together.' The Gryffindor gripped his wand tightly in his right hand, before reaching for the ornate door handle with his left, and pulling it toward him. 'What on earth...'

Greg followed Joshua through the doorway, carefully closing it behind him, as the two boys paced slowly into a room that Greg thought looked almost exactly like one corner of the school library, right down to the colour and shape of the furniture that lay scattered around. It was no wider than his own bedroom, although the set of windows that gazed out over the school's vast grounds was at least three times as high as his own room's walls. On either side of a small circular table and a set of low stools, there stood a pair of high, but sparsely populated, bookcases, although neither boy paid any heed to the books within.

'What on earth is this place?' Joshua blinked, turning to his friend, only to stop, mid-motion, as a fresh piece of parchment appeared in the centre of the table. 'Hang on... Did that just...'

Greg nodded, scrambling to sit on one of the low stools, and dragging the parchment towards himself. 'This is the Room of Requirement,' he read out a clear script that snaked across the page in front of him. 'It is what you wish it to be.'


	2. Discovery

Greg whistled, reading the parchment in his head once more. 'How did we find it?' He asked aloud, assuming the paper would respond in kind. 'Does it just appear out of nowhere?'

'It is always here,' the neat handwriting answered his question. 'You found it as it has always been found; by passing its entrance three times whilst thinking of what you wished to find.'

Greg looked up to Joshua, whose face had paled. 'I didn't,' he stammered. 'You heard what I said, Greg, I just wanted to go to the East Tower, and find...'

'... find something that none of the other kids knew about.' Greg completed Joshua's sentence for him, breaking into a broad smile. 'Do you reckon this room can turn into whatever we want it to?'

Joshua glanced down to the parchment on the table in front of them, reading out the single-word answer that had appeared. 'Yes.'

The two boys slowly turned to face one another as a hazy understanding began to take form inside their minds, before Greg broke the quiet. 'Wow.' He held up his hand, and Joshua high-fived him with a shy grin. 'There's something I want to know, though, Josh,' Greg added, slowly strolling towards the window and its panorama over the Hogwarts grounds. 'If it turns into whatever you want it to be, why on earth did you imagine this?'

Joshua blushed, looking away from his friend and squatting down onto the soft cushion of one of the stools. 'I don't know,' he slumped onto the nearby table, supporting his chin on his forearms. 'I guess I just wanted to find something new, like you said...'

Greg shrugged, turning away from the window and trotting back to take one of the other low stools. 'Shall we see what else we can make it into, then?' He asked, playfully. 'Do you want to go first?'

'Alright,' Joshua stood up, hastily, knocking his stool to the ground as he headed for the great door that led back to the seventh-floor corridor. 'Walk past the entrance three times, right?'

Greg nodded. 'Whilst you're thinking about what you want it to turn into,' he added, following his friend out of the room, and watching him stride purposefully back and forth.

'Done,' Joshua looked up moments later as the great door began to fade back into the wall. 'Come on,' he stepped forwards, reaching for the brass door handle, pushing it slowly open. 'Cool...' he breathed, holding the door open for his friend.

'What did you ask for?' Greg asked, looking around the new layout of the room. 'It just looks like, well, I don't know, like a common room.'

Joshua dropped down onto a low armchair. 'Don't you like it?' His voice wavered, and Greg immediately qualified his last sentence.

'No, it's not that,' he backtracked. 'I just expected, well...' He glanced around the room. It was larger than it had been in its librarian guise, but still no bigger than the Slytherin boys' dormitory. A handful of comfortable-looking recliners sat across the room, surrounded by a scattering of board games, books and what looked as if it must have been a radio. 'I expected a bit more.'

Joshua grimaced. 'I guess I just wanted,' he swallowed, catching himself. 'I just wanted somewhere to get away from... from everything.' He looked up, pleadingly, at the other boy, and Greg – feeling as if there were nothing else he could do – nodded.

'Can I have one go at the Room?' The Slytherin asked, tentatively, before hurrying into a postscript. 'If you don't like it, we'll change it back again, I promise.'

'I suppose,' the other boy shrugged, answering in little more than a hoarse whisper, but all the same rising to his feet and following Greg from the room. Joshua stood to one side, watching intently as the blond boy paced outside the stretch of wall that both children knew would soon transform back into a doorway.

'Okay,' Greg smiled, 'here goes.' He reached for the door, narrating his idea as he took hold. 'You said you wanted somewhere to go, and I thought that was cool, but I also figured we'd want to have some stuff to do, as well...' He eased the door open, showing that the soft recliners still held a place in one quiet corner of the room, across from a panelled wooden floor that held tables for both pool and table-tennis. 'Muggle games,' Greg explained, noting his friend's perplexed gaze. 'I'll show you how to play,' he added.

Joshua blinked 'Is that a k... a kitchen?' He gestured towards the far side of the room, where a range of walnut brown worktops and cabinets stood, each topped with a layer of black marble. 'Why do we need a kitchen? Can't we just ask for food?'

Greg shook his head. 'You can't transfigure food,' he recalled a chapter he'd read in a textbook. 'It's Gamp's Law,' Greg took a breath, 'but there's nothing stopping us getting the _ingredients_ ,' he emphasised the last word, 'and cooking for ourselves if we want to. This way we don't have to go anywhere...'

'What if we need...' Joshua began, only to fall silent as his friend pointed to a small door in the final corner of the room.

'Bathroom,' Greg explained, with a wry grin. 'So,' he asked, 'what do you think, then? Like it?'

Joshua returned his friend's smile. 'It's brilliant.'

The sun had long since set by the time that the two boys decided to turn in for the evening, leaving their room to fade into the bleak darkness of the Scottish night.

'Won't people wonder where we are?' Greg asked as he watched two of the reclining chairs transform into comfortable-looking single beds.

'Doubt it,' Joshua shrugged, letting his checked shirt fall off his shoulders. 'Can't remember the last time anyone checked.'

Greg shivered as he pulled his own shirt over his head, searching for a way to reply but struggling for the right words to say. 'Josh,' he ventured, a couple of minutes later, once both boys had buried themselves under their respective duvets. 'Why did you ask _me_ to come and stay?'

The room fell quiet again, before the Gryffindor managed a slow answer. 'Cause you never gave up before,' he struggled. 'Never, even when I had given up, even when I was being a tosser... you tried to help,' Joshua sniffed.

Greg swallowed. He hadn't really thought about what kind of answers his friend might give him, and he didn't know how to respond now. 'Oh,' he filled the silence awkwardly, speaking for the sake of making a sound. 'Right. Thanks, I guess?'

'I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't...' he rolled over, looking away from the other boy as the sheets muffled his voice.

'It would have been alright,' Greg offered, nervously. 'Someone would have figured something out.'

'Who?' Joshua snapped around, his voice growing sharply louder. 'If you guys hadn't have figured it all out then I wouldn't have known when the Hunt were coming back!' His eyes began to water. 'They would have just killed him, like they tried to do anyway, and no one could have stopped it! Then, then...' His voice tailed off, and Greg heard his friend cough over a stifled sob.

'I'm sorry,' Greg began to apologise, only for the other boy to cut him off.

'Don't,' Joshua protested immediately. 'It's not your fault.' He rolled back over, turning his back on the Slytherin as he huddled himself beneath his duvet.

Greg sighed inwardly as his friend fell silent, suddenly regretting bringing up the topic of Joshua's father. He rolled over onto his other side, staring through the room's high windows and out into the constellations that speckled the night sky, as he waited for Joshua's breathing to tell him that his friend had fallen asleep. Why, Greg asked himself again, had he mentioned the subject? He shut his eyes, pondering the question, only to drift off himself before he had the chance to fully consider his answer.

The next sound that Greg heard was the harsh thud of a pool ball as it bounced on the wooden panels of the floor. 'What the...?' He sat up abruptly in his bed, blinking Joshua's face into focus.

'Oops,' the brown-haired boy grinned, self-consciously. 'Sorry,' he offered. 'I didn't mean to wake you up.'

'It doesn't matter,' Greg shook his head, pushing himself out of bed. 'How long have you been up?'

'Not long,' Joshua shrugged, 'half an hour?'

Greg nodded. 'Have you been practising all that time?' He looked across the table, scanning the untidy spread of balls. 'Shall we have a game, then? See if you can beat me today?'

Joshua laughed, setting down his pool cue against the side of the table. 'You're on!' He reached out across the scattered balls, gathering together those that remained spread over the blue baize, before ordering them inside their triangle as Greg rolled back those that had already been potted. 'There's one missing,' Joshua looked around.

'Try the floor,' Greg grinned, remembering the noise that had woken him moments earlier.

'Oh,' Joshua laughed again, 'yeah. Do you want to break?' He offered the cue to his friend.

'Alright,' the blond boy smiled as he took it, settling over the pool table, 'watch and learn.'

As it turned out, Greg's confidence was not misplaced, and his friend's inexperience proved no match for his skill: he potted the black with four of Joshua's stripes still remaining on the table. 'Easy!' Greg held the cue up in triumph as he watched the black ball drop smoothly into a corner pocket. 'Another game?

Joshua shook his head. 'Maybe later,' he suggested, before taking a deep breath and looking up, directly into his friend's eyes. 'Listen, Greg, about last night...'

Greg felt himself tense up as he heard his friend's words, and he dropped the pool cue, clumsily. 'I'm sorry,' the Slytherin repeated.

'No,' Joshua talked over the other boy, sitting down unsteadily on the end of his unmade bed. 'I _do_ want to talk about it,' his voice wavered.

'Josh,' Greg crossed the short distance to sit on his own bed, opposite the Gryffindor. 'You don't have to tell me.'

'I do,' Joshua insisted, folding his arms across his pale chest. 'Everyone's going to ask me what happened when we get back to school. I can't just do _that_ again; I can't just hide.' He swallowed, steeling himself. 'I've got to start somewhere.'

Greg managed a thin smile, nodding slowly as he met his friend's gaze. 'If you're sure you want to...'

'I'm sure,' Joshua nodded back, defiantly, taking a deep breath before he continued. 'You saw what happened in the Great Hall, right,' he began. 'Well, Miss Pomfrey took Dad up to the hospital wing... he was in a coma,' Joshua faltered, looking back into Greg's eyes. 'Do you know...'

'Yeah,' Greg answered, softly. 'When someone's unconscious, right?'

'Right,' Joshua continued, 'and they won't wake up.' He took another breath. 'Dad was in coma for nearly a week. Even now, he's really tired. He can only stay awake for like an hour at a time, and he can hardly get out of bed. That's why Miss Pomfrey's always round us, looking after him and checking that everything is alright.' The boy's eyes reddened and he looked away for a moment. Greg didn't interrupt as his friend gathered his thoughts.

'That's not all of it, though,' Joshua looked back up, shivering. 'His m... magic,' he stammered. 'They think it might be gone.' The twelve-year-old bit his lip, hard, willing himself not to cry, but failing as a lonely tear crept down his face.

Greg stared back at the other boy, at a loss for a way to respond and afraid of what might happen if he chose the wrong words. In the end, he settled on crossing the short distance between the two beds, and sitting down beside his friend.

'I don't know what's going to happen,' Joshua blinked, turning to look at the boy alongside him. 'Where are we going to go? What's Dad going to do if he can't do magic? What's going to happen to _me_?' The single tear had been joined by several others, and Joshua couldn't keep his head from collapsing onto his friend's shoulder.

'Josh...' Greg snatched for words that might console the other boy. 'Someone will look after you,' he insisted. 'We used to say _Slytherins Stick Together_ ,' he recalled, 'but that's not enough any more, it's not just Slytherin any more. We've _all_ got to stick together, and we will,' he gritted his teeth. 'We won't let anything happen to you, Josh.'

Joshua sniffed, loudly, brushing the back of his hand across his face but still singularly failing to stop the flow of his tears. 'Really...' he choked, 'even after the way we acted, the way we behaved, the things I did...'

Greg cast his mind back to the conversation he had shared with the Sorting Hat, nearly a year ago. 'It's our choices, not our abilities, that show us who we truly are,' he murmured. 'When it mattered, you chose right.'

Joshua swallowed, trying to brush his face clear again. 'I don't deserve to have you as a friend,' he admitted, sombrely.

'Well,' Greg managed a thin smile, 'that's too bad, because you're stuck with me.'

The Gryffindor struggled to reflect his friend's grin. 'Thanks, Greg...' he muttered, 'for everything.' Joshua shook himself, lifting his head from the other boy's shoulder. 'Come on,' he ventured, 'I want to show you something.'

The rectangular hedge of the memorial garden was a familiar sight for Greg, but he didn't comment as Joshua approached the tightly trimmed plants to whisper the password that would allow their entry.

'We will never forget.' The Gryffindor buttoned the front of his checked shirt as he stepped reverentially forwards, onto the dry gravel path that led to the solemn obelisk, a monument that grew knew carried the names of all those who had lost their lives to Voldemort. 'There,' Joshua pointed.

'Helen Tregeagle,' Greg followed his friend's gesture to read a lonely entry on the pillar. 'October 19, 1996.' He swallowed, turning back to face Joshua, who nodded sadly.

'My Mum,' he explained, simply. 'I was two.'

Greg felt his throat tighten up, as his focus on the boy in front of him started to blur. He glanced around hurriedly, before staggering backwards onto the safety of a low bench on the other side of the gravelled path.

'Greg?' Joshua turned. 'You okay?'

'Yes,' the blond boy smiled, wanly, shaking his head. 'I just don't know what to say... but it shouldn't be _you_ asking _me_ that.' He gulped. 'I never knew; I never even thought about it...'

Joshua shrugged, sitting down beside his friend. 'Dad was already an auror. They attacked both of them one night at a restaurant; Dad survived, but...' He tailed off as the words began to choke his mouth.

'You don't need to tell me any more,' Greg held his friend's shoulder as Joshua stared down at the floor. 'I can see why the Hat put you in Gryffindor.'

Joshua snorted. 'A lot of good that did.' He sighed. 'What if I'd ended up in Hufflepuff, and been friends with you from the start?'

'The Hunt might still have come back,' Greg ventured. 'It was Ciaran who set it free in Defence, wasn't it? And we only beat it because it was four people from different Houses working together. Anyway,' the blond boy continued, defiantly, 'it doesn't matter what House you're in; the Hat doesn't decide what kind of person you are, you do!'

'I know,' Joshua nodded slowly, 'but... it's hard, you know, when you're on your own. You think of the worst things that could happen, and there's no-one to tell you anything else.'

Greg let the other boy's words sink in for a moment, staring up at the point of the memorial as he listened. 'You're not on your own, Josh,' he insisted, 'and we won't let you be. '

The Gryffindor turned to his friend, a nervous smile creeping onto his face. 'Thank you,' he blushed, 'and you're right. It doesn't matter what House someone is in. You're nothing like people said Slytherins would be.'

Greg grinned. 'Now to convince the rest of the world.'


	3. The Sting

Greg's week in Joshua's company at Hogwarts Castle passed with a mixture of exploration and discovery as the boys looked into the history of both the castle and the Room of Requirement.

As the Scottish summer followed warm sunshine with gusting rain, the twelve-year-olds' experiments turned the room into an all-weather Quidditch pitch, an exact copy of Greg's bedroom in Chudleigh, when Joshua had asked him what his house looked like, and an exhaustive library, designed to cater for the boys' every question about the inner workings of the school. However, Greg's original games room remained their favourite creation, and most nights were spent in the shadow of the pool table, where, by the end of the week, Joshua was able to match, and even occasionally beat, his friend.

By the time July became August, Greg thought that the other boy's demeanour had brightened considerably, although neither of them had returned to the subject of the final few weeks of term.

'Are we going to tell anyone about the Room?' The blond boy asked one afternoon, as the two children sat on a bulwark of tree roots that extended into the Black Lake, splashing their feet into the cool water.

Joshua fell still, biting his lip as he looked across to the other boy. 'I don't know,' he muttered. 'I haven't really thought about it.'

'You discovered it,' Greg recalled. 'It should be your decision. I mean, I know we aren't just going to tell everyone about it, but should we tell the others?'

'Um,' Joshua hesitated. 'I don't want everyone to know about it,' he confessed, 'and if we told a couple of people, how would we know that they'd keep it a secret? And how would we pick who we told?' The boy sighed, picking up a pebble and half-heartedly tossing it into the lake. 'I suppose we should keep it a secret for now,' he suggested. 'Then, I guess, it's somewhere to go if we ever need to...'

'Alright,' Greg nodded, not wanting to hear his friend expand on his last sentence. 'What are you doing for the rest of the summer?''

Joshua winced. 'I'm not sure,' he admitted, considering his answer. 'Spencer's coming in a couple of weeks, but...' He shook his head. 'Room of Requirement, I suppose.' Joshua tried to smile, but Greg could see that it was far from genuine.

'I'm going to stay at Theo's for a bit,' Greg began, 'in London.'

'Cool,' Joshua answered back, his voice echoing emptily against the trees that surrounded the boys.

'You should come too,' the Slytherin suggested, trying to lighten his friend's mood.

Joshua shrugged. 'Dunno,' he muttered, hesitating. 'Theo doesn't like me, though, does he?'

'What?' Greg blinked. 'What makes you think that? Don't you remember that night? Theo was the one who stopped you... he stood in front of the Wild Hunt for you!'

'But I thought...' Joshua hung his head, recalling the moment when Theo had rugby-tackled him to the floor to keep him from running headlong into the clutches of the Huntsmen. 'I don't know what I thought. He never spoke to me...'

'You never spoke to him,' Greg echoed. 'You never spoke to anyone,' he offered, softly. 'We didn't want to say anything.'

Joshua nodded, forlornly. 'Do, do you think he'd let me stay? Would there be room?'

'There'd be room,' Greg answered quickly. 'Me and Lukie stayed there at Christmas, when we,' he swallowed, remembering the first piece of work the three Slytherins had completed together. 'When we did the project on the Wild Hunt.'

Joshua smiled, slowly and wryly, and reached up to brush his fringe away from his eyes. 'It would be better than staying here on my own,' he murmured.

'I'll ask him straightaway when I get back,' Greg promised, 'I'll ring him, then I'll let you know... but... how... You haven't got phones at Hogwarts. I haven't got an owl...'

'Miss Pomfrey is taking you back again, isn't she?' Joshua checked. 'Could you ask her to hang on a minute? I'm sure she will,' he tried to convince himself. 'I mean, what else is she going to do?'

Greg shrugged. 'Wait and see.'

'Yeah,' Joshua couldn't argue. 'Wait and see.'

Happily for the boys, the school nurse had not needed much persuading to stay for long enough to hear the answer to Greg's question – and Theo had been just as quick to agree to his friend's idea.

'It's okay,' Greg dropped his phone, darting into the front room to relay the message. 'Josh can stay at Theo's,' he hurried. 'I'm going on Friday,' he added, 'could you bring Josh then?'

Poppy Pomfrey nodded, getting to her feet and bidding farewell to Elaine Bennett. 'What time will he be expected?'

'Um,' Greg stuttered, 'in the afternoon, I think.'

'Your train is at ten o'clock,' his mother supplied, helpfully. 'You'll be there mid-afternoon.'

'Three o'clock,' the nurse suggested. 'Mr Forrest's address will be on our files. Thank you, Mrs Bennett,' she made for the doorway.

'Thank you,' Greg echoed, following the witch to the front of his house and watching as she vanished from his front garden, the tell-tale crack of Apparition echoing across the quiet road. The twelve-year-old reached for the brass handle of the front door, easing it closed before retracing his steps into his living room. 'Mum,' he remembered the name he had read on the memorial obelisk at Hogwarts. 'Thank you, too. Thank you for everything.' He approached his mother, wrapping his arms around her waist.

'Gregory...' she returned his gesture, feeling her son bury his head against her. 'I...'

'Josh,' the boy murmured. 'His Mum died when he was little, and his Dad... his Dad's really ill, they don't know what's going to happen. He's just on his own...' He bit his lip, realising that tears were beginning to well at the backs of his eyes, and suddenly feeling very much like a little boy once again. 'I never want that to happen to you.'

Elaine pulled her son closer, holding him tightly against her chest. 'Greg,' she whispered, 'I hope it never does, either, but should it ever happen then I hope your friends look after you just like this.'

'Me too,' Greg sniffed, wiping his eyes. 'Me too.'

'Why didn't you tell us you'd signed us up for a rugby course?' Greg stared at the sets of protective padding that Theo had laid out across his bed on the first morning of the boys' stay.

'I wanted it to be a surprise,' Theo smiled, before his grin spread wider as he watched the other two children exchange stunned looks.

'I've hardly ever played before,' Greg protested, 'and I bet Josh hasn't, either!' The Gryffindor shook his head, agreeing with his friend's pronouncement.

'Oh come on, it'll be fun,' Theo brushed off the other boys' concern. 'I mean, you both play Quidditch, don't you? What's going to be worse than what the beaters can do to you?'

Greg shook his head, picking up one of the sets of padding and turning it over in his hands. 'Then why do you need all this, then?'

'I don't,' Theo smiled again. 'I just thought that you might.'

Greg shrugged. 'Fair enough,' he nodded. 'Might as well.' He pulled the dark layer of fabric over his chest, before slipping into a thin cotton shirt. 'Do they know we're no good?'

Theo laughed. 'I've done this course every summer for years,' he recalled. 'Some of the kids who do it can hardly even run...' He shook his head. Come on, Josh,' he persisted, tossing the remaining set of pads to the brown-haired boy. 'You'll be fine!'

'I guess...' Joshua muttered.

'I _know_ ,' Theo insisted. 'Just don't punch anyone in the nose,' he casually referenced the fateful evening when the Wild Hunt had returned to Hogwarts.

Joshua blushed. 'I won't,' he whispered.

'I know you won't,' this time Greg spoke up. 'Theo's only joking.' Greg shot his best friend a meaningful glare, quickly shaking his head as he did so. 'We may as well try it... besides, it's no good sitting round here all day, is it?'

Joshua nodded, slowly. 'Okay,' he managed, before tentatively pulling the jersey over his head, 'but _you_ can explain it if anything goes wrong.'

'Don't worry,' Theo grinned. 'It won't.' He sprung up from his bed, ferreting into the corner of the room to dig out a rugby ball, which he spun firmly across towards Greg's hands. 'See? Easy!'

Greg rolled his eyes. 'Easy for _you_ , mate.'

'Still easy!' Theo stuck his tongue out. 'Now come on, we'll be late, we've got to get the Tube across there...'

A brief subway journey across the London suburbs left the three boys with an equally short walk to the stretch of fields where the summer school would take place.

'Old Deer Park,' Greg read the sign at the edge of the pitches. 'Home of London Welsh.' He blinked, turning back to his best friend before repeating his last word. 'Welsh?'

'Yeah,' Theo nodded, nonchalantly. 'They started off as a club for Welsh people who had moved to London,' he explained. 'Look at the badge,' he pointed to the club logo, a dragon embroidered on his red shirt. 'It's not all like that any more,' the boy continued, 'but there are still lots of Welsh players and coaches.'

Greg's thoughts carried him back to the stories and Welsh history that Glyndwr Jones, a Hufflepuff boy in their year and a close friend, had discovered as part of the children's efforts to understand the threat of the Wild Hunt. 'Then did...' he stuttered, 'did you know anything about all of the stories? About Owain Glyndwr?'

Theo shook his head. 'The only stories they told us were about rugby,' he recalled. 'The Five Nations champions of the 1970s, Gareth Edwards' try for the Barbarians...'

Greg cut his friend off mid-sentence, shaking his head. 'I have no idea what you are on about,' he laughed, taking in the thoroughly baffled look on Joshua's face.

'I've got it on DVD,' Theo shrugged. 'I'll show you later, when we get home. Then you'll understand.'

Greg looked back towards Joshua, who still looked as if he were listening in to a foreign language, and the two boys shared a grin.

'I have no idea what he's talking about either...' Joshua confided, drawing closer to his friend as they watched Theo bound ahead to greet the club coaches.

'Me neither,' Greg admitted, 'but I know he absolutely loves rugby, way more than even Quidditch, so we should give it a go, right?'

'I suppose,' Joshua muttered, following the muggle-borns' footsteps as he approached the coaches in time to overhear Theo introducing him.

'These are my friends from school,' the blond boy explained. 'Greg and Josh.'

The heavy-set man that Theo was talking to nodded, a friendly smile crossing his face. 'Rugby players, too?' Greg immediately identified the soft Welsh lilt in the man's accent as his friend stammered an answer.

'Um... not really,' Theo offered. 'We don't play much rugby at school,' he began an explanation, casting a nervous sideways glance towards Greg.

'More football,' Greg supplied. He wasn't lying, he reasoned, even if he wasn't exactly telling the truth. 'Theo always tells us rugby's better, though.' This much, at least, was definitely true.

'Well, you'll find out for yourself today then, boy,' the coach grinned. 'Enjoy.'

'Football?' Joshua echoed, as they drifted away from the gates into the fields themselves.

Greg rolled his eyes. 'What else was I supposed to say?'

Any further chance for the boys to discuss their cover story, however, disappeared when a loud, low voice, which belonged to the coach who had greeted them moments earlier, rumbled across the grounds of Old Deer Park.

'Come on boys, gather in, gather in...'

A short while later, the three wizards found themselves jogging through a simple passing drill, spinning the rugby ball across the narrow distance between themselves and their partner, who clapped their hands and – hopefully – caught the ball. Joshua was working with Theo, who had suggested that the Gryffindor would learn more quickly from him than Greg, who hadn't argued. This left the other Slytherin to pair up with a dark-haired boy who introduced himself as Morgan Williams, and the children remained in these small groups for much of the morning, before joining together to begin match practice as lunchtime approached.

'What's a flanker?' Greg asked, blankly, as he heard the coach tell him and Joshua their playing positions.

'On the back of the scrum,' Theo answered, smiling. 'I'm scrum-half, I'll show you what you need to do. Try and watch everyone else to start with... you'll figure it out.'

Greg nodded slowly, deciding against arguing with his friend's confident prediction. 'Where are you playing, Morgan?'

'Prop...' Morgan answered, shaking his head. 'I've never played there before,' he protested, 'and look at me – do I look like a prop?'

Greg shrugged. 'I don't bloody know! What's a prop meant to look like?'

Theo laughed, whilst Morgan tried and failed to stifle a giggle. 'Props are at the front of the scrum, they're usually big and fat!'

Morgan couldn't have been much further from his description. A few months younger than the two Slytherins, he stood a similar height, but his build was much closer to Joshua's scrawny frame.

'Well, at least you know what you're doing,' Greg reasoned. 'At least you know the rules.'

This time Morgan laughed properly as the coach's shrill whistle ordered the boys into their positions. 'Just remember to pass it backwards,' he reminded the newcomers.

'I know that one!' Greg stuck his tongue out, before following Theo's directions into position as the match kicked off. However, in spite of all of his friend's efforts, and the coaches' encouragements, the boys seemed to spend more time on the ground than in the game.

'Do you really like this more than football?' Greg pushed himself to his feet for what felt like the tenth time in as many minutes. 'Or the other sport?'

Theo shook his head. 'This game's crap,' he picked up the loose ball, spinning it from hand to hand. 'The scrum's not supposed to keep falling down like that; we're meant to get the ball out and run with it...'

'You've got to _bind_!' Greg overheard one of the coaches' exasperated voices. 'Grab on to his shirt, and keep hold!'

'I'm trying!' A few yards away, Morgan protested loudly. 'He keeps moving, he won't let me!'

'Well, I'll watch for that,' the coach answered, taking a couple of steps backwards. 'Theo,' he called, beckoning the blond boy. 'Come on, let's try again. Crouch, Touch, Pause...'

'OUCH!' The boy playing opposite Morgan jerked his left arm upwards, a horrified look spreading across his face. 'What the hell?' He rubbed his forearm angrily as a pink, speckled rash exploded across his skin. 'What the hell are you doing?'

'Hey, hey!' The coach blew his whistle loudly, holding a strong arm across Morgan's incensed opponent. 'Stop that. Now!' He glared at the boy as the structure of the scrum broke apart. 'What's going on?'

The player held his left arm out. 'Look at that,' he fumed, 'that's where _he_ touched me. He made that happen!'

'Don't be ridiculous,' the coach dismissed the boy's claim. 'That's impossible...'

'It happened!' The boy snapped back. 'He touched me, and there was a flash of white light, and then this happened,' he gestured to the angry rash that speckled the length of his forearm. 'He did this!'

Morgan's cheeks reddened. 'You should have let me bind properly!' He spluttered, his eyes watering, before turning his back on the other players and marching furiously away from their gathering.

'Well,' the coach coughed, drawing the boys' attention back from Morgan's despondent figure, slumped on a wide tree stump at the edge of a woodland. 'We need to have a look at that rash...' he mumbled. 'I suppose this is a good time for a lunch break.'

'Did you see it?' Greg asked Joshua anxiously as the group of boys went their separate ways. 'What happened?'

'Pretty much what he said,' the Gryffindor answered. 'Morgan tried to get a grip, like the coach told him to, but the other kid wouldn't let him, so Morgan grabbed his arm. Then there was a flash of white light, and, well, you saw what happened next, right?'

'The flash of light?' Greg repeated. 'Do you think that... maybe...' He shook his head. 'No, that's stupid.'

'What?' Joshua pushed his friend.

'Well,' Greg winced. 'I wondered, if, maybe, you thought it could have been...'

'A Stinging Hex?' Joshua's tone of voice didn't change. 'Fodio. That's what it looked like to me.'

The three boys turned almost as one, staring across the rugby fields towards Morgan, who remained sitting, almost motionless, his head hidden in his hands.

'Accidental magic...?' Theo ventured, making sure that he understood what the other boys were suggesting, and his friends nodded.

'How old did he say he was again, Greg?' Joshua checked.

'Eleven,' the other boy answered instantly. 'First-year next year if he's a... if we're right.'

'Letters haven't come yet, either,' Joshua observed. 'He won't know.'

Theo shuddered. 'If that's what it was, that must have scared the crap out of him... Even if it wasn't...'

'Let's go talk to him,' Greg suggested, before feeling the need to justify himself as the other boys fell silent. 'He was alright this morning, wasn't he?' Greg swallowed. 'Anyway, look at him now! No one deserves to be left like that!' He turned on his heel, setting a determined pace towards Morgan's tree stump and leaving his friends scrambling to catch up.

'Hey, Morgan,' Greg called out softly as he neared the dark-haired boy, who looked up sharply.

'What?' His eyes, blotchy and red-rimmed, narrowed as Greg approached. 'Leave me alone!'

'Morgan...' Greg implored, trying to reason with the other boy.

'I said leave me alone!' the eleven-year-old stood up, oblivious to the tears streaking his cheeks. 'I didn't mean to do it!'

'So you did do it?' Theo asked, tactlessly.

'Shut up!' Morgan jumped to his feet, lashing out wildly at the older boys, only for Greg to catch him by the wrist.

'Morgan,' Greg repeated the boy's name once again, holding firmly onto his arm. 'I know you didn't mean it,' he asserted.

'What?' The dark-haired boy jolted. 'Really...?' His arm fell limp inside Greg's grip.

'Really,' Greg loosened his grasp, allowing the eleven-year-old to drop back onto the tree stump before sitting down alongside him. 'Has anything like that happened to you before?' Greg ventured.

Morgan shook his head, sadly. 'I don't know how it happened,' he stammered. 'He wouldn't let me bind properly, he kept moving his arm, so I just grabbed hold of it instead. Then there was this flash of light...' He tailed off. 'I don't know what happened,' he repeated. 'It was like... magic...'

Greg glanced, nervously, back at the other wizards as a torrent of thoughts began to pulse through his head. How sure was he that Morgan was a fellow underage wizard? Was he allowed to talk about Hogwarts to someone who hadn't yet received his letter? What about the International Statute of Secrecy? 'Maybe it was,' he settled for a deliberately vague response.

Morgan swallowed, looking uncertainly across at the other boy. 'What do you mean?' He pressed. 'Magic's not real...'

'That's what I thought,' Greg countered, 'until I discovered it was.'

Morgan fell silent. 'What?' He blinked. 'What are you on about? Magic's not real...'

'Then explain what just happened,' Joshua interrupted. 'Whether you meant it or not, look what you did to his arm. It was a Stinging Hex, I'm sure of it.'

Morgan's mouth fell open. 'Stinging... what...' He gasped for breath, his eyes watering once again. 'What are you talking about? Stop taking the piss!'

'I'm not taking the piss,' Greg answered back, as calmly as he could muster, remembering his own neighbour's reassuring presence when he had discovered the existence of the magical world the previous summer. 'It's all true. We all go to a boarding school in Scotland where we learn all about it, and how to control it... but sometimes people do magic they don't understand by accident when they're frightened, or angry.'

'R... Really?' Morgan shivered.

'Really,' Greg assured him. 'Why would we make this up?'

'To take the piss,' Morgan answered, sadly.

'After all that?' Theo cut in. 'After what that tosser was doing at the scrum, you think we'd take the piss out of you?' He shook his head. 'What kind of person would want to do that?'

Morgan shrank back on the tree stump. 'I know enough of them.'

'So do I,' Joshua flinched, 'I used to be one...'

Greg looked up, catching his friend's eye and offering him a reassuring smile. 'You aren't any more.'

'What happens to me now?' Morgan asked, quietly. 'If it's all true? You said you all go to the boarding school – what about me?'

'We haven't had our letters about the second year yet,' Greg explained. 'You'll get one too,' he tried to make his voice sound convincing. 'It'll tell you everything you need to know... and if you still have any questions, then come and ask us, or if we're not all still around...'

'Ask me,' Theo patted the London Welsh badge on his rugby shirt. 'Team mates,' he nodded.

'All alright over there?' A coach's voice called over to the four children. 'Morgan?'

'Yes,' the dark-haired boy stood up, 'fine.'

'Your mother is coming to pick you up,' the man explained. 'We think it's probably a good idea if you have the rest of the day off.'

'He hasn't done anything wrong!' Theo stood in front of the eleven-year-old.

The man grimaced. 'That's not how everyone sees it, I'm afraid...'

'Will he be allowed back tomorrow?' Theo was unrepentant as the coach hesitated. 'If he's not allowed back, we're not coming back either.'

Greg and Joshua glanced at one another – they had never heard Theo make a threat like that as long as they had known him, and the Slytherin knew full well just how highly his best friend regarded his rugby coaches.

'Well, I can't say for sure... We'll see...' The man stuttered. 'Morgan, can you come with me, please?'

'See you tomorrow, mate,' Theo called out, unnecessarily loudly, as Morgan walked away compliantly, only turning briefly to acknowledge the blond boy's shout of farewell.

'Since when did Slytherins do that?' Joshua shook his head, marvelling as Theo fixed his stare on the back of the coach's head.

'Don't know,' Theo shrugged, 'but I guess after you've stood in front of a thousand-year-old ghost huntsman who wants to rip you apart, then everything else doesn't seem so bad.'


	4. Paper

'I still can't believe they made him go home,' Theo had not stopped complaining even as he turned the keys in his front door later that afternoon.

'Me neither, but there's nothing we can do about it now,' Greg followed his friend into the house. 'Hang on,' he bent down, picking up a stack of parchment envelopes from the floor beside his feet. 'Our letters are here! All of them!'

Joshua's eyebrows rose. 'Where did you think they were going to send them? They know we're both here... and even if they didn't, they could have used the Trace.'

'Trace?' Theo halted, halfway through ripping open the seal on the back of his own envelope.

'Yeah,' Joshua nodded, sarcastically. 'You know, the way the Ministry keep track of you, and make sure you haven't been doing underage magic.'

Theo swallowed. 'Oh,' he smiled, awkwardly. 'I didn't know.'

'Doesn't matter,' Greg interrupted, pulling his letter free from its envelope. 'You do now.'

'They're probably all the same,' Joshua copied his friends in tearing into the contents. 'Just a new book list, I reckon.'

'Yeah,' Greg answered, unfolding the parchment he had received. 'Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2.'

'Surprise,' Theo snorted.

'This one's new, though,' Joshua had read onwards. 'Beasts Beware: a field guide to Dark creatures of the British Isles, by Mary Knight.'

Theo's eyes narrowed. 'I didn't think we did Magical Creatures until third-year.'

'We don't,' Joshua answered, matter-of-factly. 'It must be for Defence. They must have got a new teacher.' He took a couple of steps towards the foot of a staircase, and closed his eyes as he sunk down.

'Josh...' Greg ventured, tentatively. 'If they're not sure how long it will take for your Dad to get better... They couldn't just leave it.'

'I know,' the Gryffindor didn't look up. 'I knew they'd have to get a new teacher. It's just, reading this, it makes it seem real all over again... it's stupid, I know...'

'It's not stupid,' Theo replied, forcefully. 'I get reminded of it sometimes, too. Sometimes it's good, it makes you think of what you can do if you put your mind to it, but sometimes it's, well...'

'I know,' Joshua repeated, looking up forlornly as he tried to blink away the outlines of his tears. 'Sorry,' he took a deep breath, pushing himself up to his feet, and changing the subject. 'Do you think Morgan got a letter?'

Theo shrugged. 'He'd better... otherwise we'll have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.'

'Don't,' Greg rolled his eyes. 'Anyway, he's bound to get one. How else could all of that have happened if it wasn't accidental magic?'

'Guess we'll find out tomorrow,' Theo finished scanning his letter, before pushing it untidily back into its envelope and heading down the hallway of his house towards the kitchen. 'Come on, I'll show you that DVD now, the greatest try anyone ever scored...'

Joshua's question would be answered early the following morning, as the boys retraced their steps from Richmond Underground station to the rugby fields that the London Welsh club called home. Morgan Williams was waiting at the gates.

'Hey,' the dark-haired boy called out, unable to contain himself as the other three children approached. 'You were right! You were right, I got a letter...'

'Shush!' Joshua interrupted sharply. 'Keep your voice down,' he hissed, staring fiercely at Morgan's suddenly nervous expression. 'Sorry,' he lowered his own voice as the three twelve-year-olds approached the younger boy, 'but you can't go shouting that out to everyone.'

Morgan blushed. 'Sorry,' he echoed, biting his lip.

'It's okay,' Greg re-assured him, before taking note of the woman standing alongside the eleven-year-old. 'Is this your Mum?'

'Yes,' Morgan nodded, and the other boys' eyes glanced upwards towards a short, slim woman who wore a pursed expression of bemusement and surprise. 'She didn't really believe it,' he confided, 'that magic was real, but I told her that you knew what I did yesterday, that you said it was magic...'

'Is it true?' Morgan's mother spoke in a clipped voice. 'Hogwarts School? Magic?'

'Yes,' Greg answered simply. 'All of it.'

'And you go there?'

'Yes,' Greg repeated.

'You know where he can get these... things he needs...?'

'Yes,' Greg smiled gently at the boy and his mother. 'We're probably going to go this week,' he explained. 'He can come with us if he wants.'

'Hang on,' Theo spoke up for the first time. 'Why don't you come back to my house tonight, and stay over? We can tell you about everything you need to know, and then go to down to Diagon Alley tomorrow.'

Morgan looked pleadingly across to his mother, who scowled for a moment before sighing as she relented. 'Well, it can't hurt... can it? You don't end up fighting and stinging each other at this school do you?'

'No,' Greg shook his head, automatically, hoping that the woman wouldn't push the question any further.

'Thanks, Mum,' the dark-haired boy beamed, turning around and flinging his arms around his mother. 'Could you bring me some pyjamas, and...'

'Yes, dear,' Morgan's mother returned her son's hug. 'I'll drop something off for you at the end of the day. See you later.'

'Bye, Mum,' Morgan waved.

'Are they definitely going to let you play again, then?' Greg asked, as kindly as he could manage.

'They will,' Theo answered, stridently. 'I'm pretty sure they don't want me to go and play for London Scottish instead.'

Joshua laughed. 'That's Slytherin.'

'That's what?' Morgan blinked.

'One of the Houses at school,' Greg put an arm around the younger boy's shoulders as they followed their friend into the park. 'Come on, mate,' he smiled. 'We'll explain later.'

Theo never told the other boys whether he had needed to make the threat he had suggested, for it turned out that all four children were allowed back for the second day of the rugby course. Sensibly, the coaches kept Morgan well away from the other boys with whom he had clashed, and the day passed without any further incident.

'I still can't believe it's all real,' the eleven-year-old muttered, following Theo as the blond boy pushed open his front door later that afternoon. 'I keep thinking it's like one great big practical joke... but then I remember what happened yesterday in that scrum,' he continued, without talking to anybody in particular.

'You'll believe it in a minute,' Greg assured him, kicking off his shoes at the foot of the stairs.

'Particularly when you have a look at my trunk!' Theo yelled from halfway up the staircase, and the other boys scampered upwards to the Slytherin's bedroom. 'Have a look at this!' Theo tossed a slim hardback book, titled "Quidditch Through the Ages" towards Morgan, who caught it, turned it over so that its cover faced him, and felt his jaw drop open.

'The pictures...' he stammered. 'They're moving...'

Greg laughed good-naturedly, clapping Morgan on the shoulder. 'They're wizard pictures,' he explained, recalling the first time he had seen a photograph move – a Chudley Cannons team lineup in his neighbour's attic. 'They do that.'

'Wow...' Morgan gasped, disbelievingly flicking through the first pages of the book, taking in a selection of famous goals, saves and beaters' takedowns. 'Quidditch?' He asked, and the others nodded.

'It's the wizard sport,' Greg added. 'Wizards have been playing it for hundreds of years... even longer than muggles have played football or rugby.'

'Muggles?' Morgan's voice seemed to have taken on an almost permanently questioning nature.

'People who aren't magic... like our parents,' Greg answered patiently, only to notice Joshua's wince and suddenly wish he'd chosen a different example.

'So...' Morgan swallowed, 'are you all... like me? Muggle parents, I mean?'

Even as they nodded their own silent answers, Greg and Theo couldn't keep themselves from turning to stare at Joshua.

'My parents were magical,' the Gryffindor whispered. 'My Mum died when I was two, and my Dad...' He took a deep breath, before fixing his gaze on the floor. 'My Dad got attacked this summer. He's still alive, but they don't know if he's going to get his magic back.' He tried to smile as he blinked his eyes clear.

'Oh,' Morgan filled the silence. 'I'm sorry,' he shook his head. 'I didn't know...'

'It's alright,' Joshua sighed. 'I know you didn't. I have to get used to telling people about it, anyway.'

'I never knew my Dad,' Morgan confessed, and Joshua acknowledged him with a thin smile. 'People don't ask me about it,' the eleven-year-old added.

'They'll ask me,' Joshua shook his head, sadly. 'My Dad was a teacher. He got attacked at school.'

'Oh,' Morgan tailed off, shivering as the other boy's explanation sunk in. 'H... how...?' He stammered. 'What happened?'

'It's a long story,' Greg cautioned, 'but I guess we owe you it, seeing as it's your school now, too.' The other two second-years nodded, leaving Greg to begin his narration. 'I suppose we'd better start with the Sorting Hat...'

'So that was it,' the twelve-year-old finished, nearly half an hour later. The three boys had stumbled through the story of their first year at Hogwarts, skating over their early arguments and petty squabbles, and concentrating on the tale of the Wild Hunt and the Four Elements, building up to the final confrontation in the Great Hall. 'We never saw the Hunt again.'

Morgan's face had turned a deathly pale beneath his dark fringe, and he shivered as he spoke next. 'That happened... at school?' He stuttered. 'You nearly died, and you want to go back?' The eleven-year-old stared disbelievingly at the older boys. 'Why...?'

Greg hesitated for a moment, glancing to his left towards Theo and Joshua, before turning back to face Morgan. 'Cause we're not leaving Josh on his own,' Greg swallowed, before forcing his voice to grow louder as he continued. 'Same as we didn't leave you on your own yesterday.'

Morgan's head dropped as he heard Greg's words, and he felt the raw prickle of tears at the back of his eyes as the memory of the previous day replayed itself inside his mind. 'I'm sorry...' he mumbled.

'Don't be,' Greg interrupted, as Theo moved to sit alongside the youngest of the four boys. 'It's a lot to take in, I know.'

'Yeah,' Theo echoed, holding his arm around Morgan's shoulders. 'It's alright, mate, we all found it hard at the start. I know I did, the first time I heard about everything.'

'And me,' Joshua agreed. 'We didn't tell you this, but we hated each other for almost all of the year,' he admitted, 'because that's what Gryffindors and Slytherins were supposed to do. Sometimes, I think... I wonder,' he stuttered, 'if everything hadn't have happened like it did, would we have ever made up?'

'Probably not,' Greg answered, slowly.

Joshua sighed. 'Definitely not, I don't reckon,' he managed a thin smile.

'I wish we'd worked it out before your Dad got attacked, though,' Greg reflected, honestly. 'How to beat the Hunt.'

'You did your best,' the Gryffindor shrugged, 'and you never gave up,' he swallowed. 'Same as I'm not giving up on him now... not never.'

'That's why we're going back,' Theo whispered to Morgan. 'I can't explain it in words, but...'

'I get it,' Morgan nodded. 'All for one, and one for all...'

Greg smiled. 'We used to say Slytherins Stick Together,' he recalled, 'but I guess that counts for pretty much the same thing.'

'Still up for Diagon Alley tomorrow, Morgan?' Theo relaxed his grip on the eleven-year-old's shoulder as the younger boy pushed his dark fringe away from his eyes.

'That's where the shops are, right?' Morgan asked, before smiling defiantly. 'Yes.'

'D'you think it's going to be busy?' Theo asked the other second-years as the four boys emerged from the Underground station at Charing Cross into the August sunlight.

'Don't know,' Greg answered, filling the quiet that had followed his friend's question. 'Does everybody get their letter on the same day?'

Joshua nodded. 'I think so... Dad always had to decide on his books at the same time,' he took a deep breath, refusing to dwell on the subject, 'but they might not all come the next day.'

'It's going to be quite a long way for some people to come to London as well, isn't it?' Morgan ventured. 'If they come from all over the country.'

'Yeah,' Greg agreed, 'but that doesn't matter, mate,' he smiled. 'Wizards can travel anywhere they want to by Apparating... like teleporting... or through their fireplaces on the Floo Network.'

Morgan's head dropped. 'Sorry...'

'Stop apologising!' Greg laughed, ruffling the younger boy's hair. 'Me and Theo know how this feels, remember? Some things still don't make any sense to us... You've just got to keep asking, cause people will help you out.'

'Thank you,' Morgan nodded.

Joshua glanced back over his shoulder. 'Does that mean you'll explain Theo's haircut, then?' He grinned, before ducking down as the target of his jibe swung a playful arm towards his head.

'No,' Greg shook his head, laughing. 'No one can explain that. Maybe he's allergic to scissors? Is that it?'

'Oh, piss off, both of you,' Theo stuck his tongue out. 'Like I said, I'll get it cut when I can't see the bludgers any more.'

'Quidditch balls,' Greg whispered to Morgan, letting the first-year join in with the others' laughter. 'If that happens, we're going to shave it all off when he gets knocked out...'

Morgan smiled. 'How much further is it?'

'Not long,' the older boy answered, quickly. 'Just a bit further, through the back of that pub,' he pointed ahead, to a run-down looking building that squatted beside a bookshop.

'How come muggles don't go in it?' Morgan asked, his gaze following Greg's direction.

'Same reason they don't end up in Hogwarts,' the blond boy replied. 'They can't see it. Watch,' he suggested, 'they just walk straight past. No one will notice us as we go in.'

'Wow,' Morgan blinked, before quickening his stride as he followed the other boys through the door and into the pub.

'Brace yourself, mate,' Greg warned his friend. 'If you thought that was weird, just wait till you see the Alley.' The Slytherin noticed the eleven-year-old draw a fraction closer as Joshua tapped his wand against the backyard wall. 'Enjoy...'

'Bloody hell...'

'Told you,' Greg smiled. 'Welcome to the wizarding world. Where do you wanna go first?'

'Quidditch,' Theo answered instantly.

Joshua rolled his eyes. 'Not you, you daft git!'

Theo blushed. 'Oh, yeah. Sorry!'

Morgan shook his head. 'I don't know...' he stuttered. 'I don't know where anything is,' he winced.

'I guess it should be Gringotts first, then. That's the bank,' Joshua concluded. 'You need some money – then go and get your wand. You've got your list, haven't you?'

Morgan nodded. 'W... Where's the bank?'

'Down there,' Joshua pointed to a large white marble building that towered over the middle distance of the alley. 'Can't miss it. Just look out for the goblins inside.'

'Come on then,' Greg pulled on Morgan's sleeve. 'Let's go. Go look at your Quidditch stuff, Theo,' he grinned. 'Meet you outside Flourish and Blotts in half an hour?'

'Alright,' the other boy didn't need to think about his friend's suggestion for very long before he agreed. 'Can't stand goblins, anyway...'

'They're not... dangerous, are they?' Morgan questioned, nervously. 'Goblins, I mean?'

'Not if you don't piss them off,' Greg answered, dryly, 'and whatever you do, don't try and steal from them.'

'I... I won't.'

'Good decision,' Greg laughed. 'We'll be at Ollivander's in no time,' he predicted, and less than ten minutes later he had proved himself correct as he pushed the wandmaker's door open, leading the eleven-year-old into the sparse interior of the shop. 'Hello?' He called out, before the sound of footsteps told him that the old man who ran the store was approaching.

'Ah, Mr Bennett,' his eyes narrowed behind the scraggy mane of tangled grey hair. 'Mahogany with kneazle hair, nine inches... no problems, I trust.'

'That's my wand,' he told his friend as he felt his hand clenching subconsciously around the wooden blade in the pocket of his shorts. 'No, sir,' he raised his voice, 'None at all. This is Morgan Williams. He needs to buy a wand.'

'A-ha,' the old man nodded, turning to face the dark-haired boy, who took an involuntary step backwards. 'Another Welshman.'

Greg turned to face the other boy as the wandmaker spoke. 'You never said that...'

Morgan's voice dropped to little more than a whisper. 'I never knew. I mean,' he corrected himself suddenly, 'I know my name is as Welsh as you can get, and that's the team I play for, but my mum isn't Welsh... and, well, I told you I never knew my Dad.'

Greg nodded. 'It's okay, mate,' he smiled. 'Don't worry about it.' He watched as Ollivander's set of tape measures scooted up and down Morgan's nervous body, before returning themselves to the pockets of the old man's robes as he headed back into the rear of the store. 'He'll find the right one for you,' Greg explained. 'It might not be the first one you try, but you'll know when it is.'

For Morgan, it was fourth time lucky, as Ollivander picked out an eight-and-a-half inch blackthorn wand, with a core of ground erumpent horn.

'Don't ask me what one of them is,' Greg shook his head as the boys left the shop. 'I've got no idea...'

'It doesn't matter...' Morgan was still staring, entranced, at his new purchase. 'I don't care if it's got six eyes and five noses, this feels awesome. It feels like it there was a bit of me missing, and this makes up for it...'

Greg smiled, clutching at his own wand again and remembering the day he purchased it for the first time, with his neighbour Matthew Sawyer watching over him. 'I know what you mean, mate,' he nodded. 'I don't think the rest of your shopping is gonna be quite as much fun, though.'

Morgan nodded. 'I never thought I'd be looking forward to school like this.'

'Me neither,' Greg echoed, 'me neither.'


	5. September the First

'Hey, mate,' Oscar Symons, a fifth-year Slytherin prefect, looked up to greet Greg as the younger boy pulled open the door to an already busy compartment on board the Hogwarts Express. 'It's a bit different to last year, right?'

'Dead right!' Greg laughed at the blond-haired boy's comparison, recalling the previous year's train journey, when hardly any other pupils had dared talk with the handful of Slytherins who had shared a compartment. 'Nowhere to put my trunk this year, though.'

'It'll make a change for that thing to stay in one place for more than a week, won't it?' Matthew Sawyer, Oscar's best friend and the Slytherin Quidditch Captain, nodded towards his near neighbour's trunk. 'Hardly saw you in Chudleigh all summer.'

Greg blushed a little. 'Sorry,' he mumbled. 'I tried to come and see you when I was home, but you were on holiday, I think...'

'It's alright, mate,' Matthew laughed. 'We'll see enough of each other at school, I bet. Come on,' he beckoned, getting to his feet. 'You can get your trunk up here, and we can fit Theo's in too... hang on,' he paused. 'Who's that?'

Greg glanced back over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of Morgan's dark hair, before the newcomer hid behind the other second-year. 'This is Morgan Williams,' he introduced the eleven-year-old. 'We met him on a rugby course... he's like us, muggle-born.'

'Cool,' Oscar stood up, holding out his hand towards Morgan. 'Nice to meet you, Morgan. You going to be in Slytherin, too?'

'I... I don't know,' Morgan stammered.

'It's the best House,' Oscar grinned, only for a small boy sitting on the opposite side of the compartment to cut him off.

'It is not!' The boy, who was no taller than Morgan despite his extra year, called out shrilly. 'Who won the House Cup?'

'Who cares about the House Cup, Cameron?' a brown-haired boy with glasses that sat on his freckled face answered back. 'Quidditch is more important, everyone knows that!'

Cameron Ollerton stuck his tongue out, and the boy with glasses laughed.

'Good comeback,' he grinned. 'Shows why you're not in Ravenclaw!'

'Shut up, Zac,' Cameron reddened. 'What did you get in your exams again?'

'Oh,' the glee in Isaac Davies' voice deflated almost instantly. 'Can't remember...'

'It doesn't matter what House you end up in, Morgan,' another boy interrupted, noticing the first-year's nervous expression. 'We learnt that last year, didn't we? We wouldn't have beaten the Hunt without all four Houses working together.'

'I know, Glyn,' Cameron apologised. 'I was just winding him up.'

'How was your summer then, Glyn?' Greg changed the subject, sitting down opposite the Welsh boy.

'Good, thanks,' Glyndwr Jones smiled. 'We went with the Harpies on their tour to Croatia.'

'Cool,' Greg smiled. 'I guess that's where you got that tan from, right?'

Glyn nodded. 'Yeah. I don't know how they manage to play Quidditch in that weather every day.' He shook his head. 'Me and Iestyn tried playing some one-on-one, it was like being in a sauna.'

'Not going to be like that back at Hogwarts,' Theo observed. 'Remember that Ravenclaw game last year?' He shivered at the memory. 'I didn't think it was possible for it to rain that much...'

'You've never been to Iceland, then, have you?' Oscar interjected. 'What a crap place to go for a summer holiday that is.'

'Iceland?' Theo asked, disbelievingly. 'Why on earth did you go to Iceland?'

'Dad's a volcanologist,' the older boy explained. 'Iceland's full of volcanoes. He said it wasn't that bad in the summer. All I can say is that I hope I never have to go there in the winter...'

'Don't get him started...' Matthew shook his head. 'Anyone know about the new Defence teacher? Greg? Did Josh tell you anything?'

'No, he doesn't know anything,' Greg answered, firmly. 'What textbook have you been set? We've got something about Dark creatures.'

'Something called "Beyond the Wand", I think,' Oscar grimaced. 'I've had a look through it... it's all about things like using your surroundings to outsmart your opponent. We've got to bring our old book as well, though.'

'That sounds fun, doesn't it?' Matthew rolled his eyes. 'Tregeagle might have been strict, but at least he taught us stuff.'

'We haven't even met him yet,' Glyn observed, fairly. 'You don't know what he's going to be like yet.'

'As long as he's more interesting than Binns, I don't mind,' Oscar shrugged. 'We'll find out soon enough, won't we? No point worrying too much about it now, is there?'

'Guess not,' Matthew shook his head. 'Hey, has anyone seen Lucas yet?'

'Not since he stayed at ours over the holidays,' Isaac shook his head. 'I didn't see him on the platform, either.'

Oscar snorted. 'I hope Kevin left him alone,' he spat the name of the other Slytherin fifth-year. 'I haven't missed seeing that tosser, I can promise you that.'

'He's probably just late,' Greg tried to reason, 'but we should go look for him if he doesn't get here soon.'

There was no need for a search party, however, as the pale face of a redheaded boy appeared at the window of the compartment soon after.

'Lukie!' Isaac greeted his friend. 'Alright, mate?'

'Yeah,' the new arrival nodded, slowly, slumping down on his seat after dragging his heavy trunk through the door. 'Good to be back.'

'I guess you haven't been anywhere sunny, then?' Oscar returned to the topic of summer holidays, and Lucas shook his head.

'Just Norfolk,' he muttered, with a sigh. 'Boring.' Lucas glanced around the carriage, taking in the faces of his school friends.

'This is Morgan,' Greg explained, pre-empting the redhead's question as his friend's eyes settled on the first-year. 'The boy we met in London.'

'Oh,' Lucas relaxed, 'hi.'

'Hi,' Morgan echoed. 'Are you in Slytherin, too?'

'Yes,' Lucas managed a thin smile.

Morgan nodded. 'Is that everyone?'

'What do you mean, everyone?' Greg answered playfully. 'Everyone in the whole school?'

Isaac rolled his eyes. 'Was that meant to be funny, Greg?' He grinned. 'There's no more Slytherins in our year, Morgan,' Isaac added, 'but I guess we might see some of the Gryffindors.'

'They won't fit in this compartment with us, though, will they?' Theo joined in. 'It's tight enough as it is...'

'Fine,' Isaac corrected himself, 'then we might have to _go and see_ some of the Gryffindors. We've got long enough until we get to Hogwarts, haven't we? Plenty to catch up on before the feast.'

'Feast?' Morgan queried.

'Hasn't anyone told you about that?' Oscar laughed. 'What have they been telling you about, then? That's the best bit!' The prefect launched into a full description of the banquet that would be laid out to welcome the children back to Hogwarts, and Isaac's description of the long journey ahead was swiftly filled with a multitude of stories as the older children competed to prepare Morgan for his induction into the magical world. Before any of the boys had realised it, the morning sun had drifted across the sky and dipped below the Western horizon.

'Prefects' meeting!' A sharp knock on the glass of the compartment window jolted the boys back into the present.

'Better be off, then.' Oscar waved an acknowledgement to the face in the doorway, and he and Matthew got to their feet. 'See you at the feast, guys. Good luck with the Sorting, Morgan. Watch out for the squid!'

Greg made sure he caught Morgan's eye as a crowd of new first-years shuffled along the centre of the Great Hall. The scattering of children on the Slytherin table, at the far side of the hall, were almost all clustered towards the front of the room, their eyes keenly set on the slumbering form of the school's Sorting Hat.

'Kevin looks pleased to be back, doesn't he?' Matthew sneered, pointing out the aloof figure of Lucas' older brother, who had taken a solitary place at the opposite end of the room.

'Don't talk about him,' Lucas snapped, folding his arms sourly.

'Sorry,' the older boy checked himself, but the clear voice of Pomona Sprout, a Herbology teacher and the Deputy Headmistress, stopped him from adding anything more to his apology.

'Welcome back to Hogwarts,' she beamed, taking her place on the raised stage beside the battered old hat. 'I know you all know the routine by now, so I shan't keep you any longer than I need to. I know we've all been waiting to hear from our favourite hat...'

As if on cue, a torn crease that ran across the peak of the Sorting Hat grew wider, before the whole of the hat began to twist into life, and its words rang out across the Great Hall, overshadowing the stunned gasps of the first-years.

 _It's eight safe years since Riddle fell_

 _But listen close now to what I must tell_

 _I know that Voldemort is no more_

 _But he was not the only threat to Wizard Law_

 _Before him, through time, others fought_

 _Control they sought, and chaos they wrought_

 _Study your History, and you will know_

 _From the lust for power, evil can grow_

 _Dark Magic lurks where you expect it least_

 _Its vile temptation turns man into beast_

 _This very room has seen its own part_

 _Even last summer, families torn apart_

 _Yet even still, some of us cannot see_

 _It is not who you are, but who you wish to be_

 _The badge of a House is not all you are_

 _There is more to a person, much more by far_

 _Sometimes one may need a Gryffindor's nerve_

 _Or perhaps Ravenclaw wit may better serve_

 _My Sorting, however, does not tell you_

 _All that you can, or cannot, do_

 _It is no more than a guide, a gentle bump_

 _Don't say "how high?" if I say "jump"_

 _A House is like a family, but it isn't the end_

 _Sometimes you simply need a good friend_

 _Remember, it isn't just Hufflepuff_

 _Who'll stand at your side if the going gets tough_

 _And we all know it's not only Slytherin_

 _Who'll do everything they can to win_

 _Lion, Eagle, Badger or Snake_

 _I know it's my decision to make_

 _Yet as Ancient Magic lingers on_

 _I cannot help but fear all this is wrong_

 _If the Founders' Houses continue to fight_

 _Their pupils may forget what is right_

 _Hogwarts, my children, will be your home_

 _As long as you remember: you're never alone_

A scattering of applause rippled across the Hall, fighting for dominance over a cloud of uneasy whispers that questioned the Hat's choice of words. There was little chance for the children to dwell on the ominous theme, however, as Sprout's voice drew their attention again. 'When I call your name, you will try on the hat, and be sorted into your House.' She glanced down to the scroll of parchment she was holding. 'Ablett, Penelope!'

It would be a long wait before Morgan's surname brought him to the Sorting Hat, Greg realised as he watched Penelope sort into Gryffindor, leaving the Slytherin second-years to wait – like two-thirds of the other returning students – for their first new arrival. Gryffindor quickly collected another two students in Tyler Barton and Dean Collins, but the Slytherins didn't have to wait much longer to welcome a new member to the green and silver as Thomas Fitch, a small boy with a dark fringe that was almost as long as Theo's, joined the House. He was quickly followed by Anton Garnett, a tall dark boy with wiry black hair, and a pair of girls, Katie Keane and Victoria Montague.

'Bloody hell,' Matthew whispered as Victoria sat, self-consciously, beside Katie. 'We haven't had any ladies in five years.'

Theo grinned. 'A bit young for you, aren't they? Ouch!' He recoiled as the Quidditch Captain nudged him firmly in the ribs.

'You think?' He turned his gaze across the Great Hall. 'I'm kind of hoping that I might have a chance with some of the girls in the other Houses this year. I reckon "Quidditch Cup Winning Captain" has a bit of a ring to it.'

'Yeah?' The second-year laughed as Paul Quinn became a Hufflepuff. 'It's better than what you could say last year, isn't it?'

Further down the table, Greg turned to Lucas, who had tried – and failed – to start up a conversation with Thomas. 'Where do you think Morgan's going to sort?'

The redhead shrugged. 'No idea,' he admitted. 'I only met him on the train,' he justified his caution, 'and besides, how do you tell any more, anyway? He could end up in any of the Houses, for all I know...'

'I hope he's in Slytherin,' Greg replied. 'We need as many as we can get.'

'I guess,' Lucas didn't argue. 'Here's another one, anyway,' he observed, clapping his hands as a pale, blond boy named Leif Ulriksson became the fifth new Slytherin. 'Won't be long before Morgan's go, now.'

'Nope,' Greg agreed, holding his hand out to welcome Leif to the House table, as the first year smiled shyly back. 'Welcome to Slytherin.'

Leif blushed, sitting down on the end of the table alongside the two second-years. 'Thanks,' he whispered, his voice drowned out by a large roar from the other end of the hall as Shane Vittles, a burly boy with very short hair, became a Gryffindor.

'Beater material,' Oscar observed, pithily, and Greg smiled, despite the bemused look on Leif's face.

'You muggle-born?' Greg asked, and the first-year nodded timidly. 'Don't worry,' the older boy smiled. 'So am I. We'll explain later... it looks like there's only a few left now.'

'Williams, Morgan,' Sprout's voice demanded Greg's attention as the eleven-year-old Londoner edged towards the centre of the stage, glancing backwards toward the Slytherin table as he did so, and managing a thin smile as he noticed the second-year's subtle thumbs-up.

'SLYTHERIN!' the hat announced a few moments later, and the House Table broke into the loudest applause it had mustered that evening.

'Well done, Morgan,' Greg smiled, shuffling down the side of the House table to create a space for the new arrival, who grinned back as Andrea Yaxley, the last in the line of new first-years, joined Ravenclaw.

'Thank you for your patience,' Minerva McGonagall, the Headmistress, rose to her feet. 'It is almost time for the feast – but first, I must introduce two new members of staff.' She looked to her left. 'First, Dylan Jenkins will be taking over the role of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor from Jacob Tregeagle.' A handful of eyes across the hall flickered away from the bald head and silver moustache on the rounded face of the new teacher and towards Joshua. The Gryffindor boy remained steadfastly stony-faced, however, and the Headmistress continued her speech. 'Neville Longbottom will become Acting Head of Gryffindor. Additionally,' she drew a breath, 'Joanna Holte will be joining the staff to cover a number of lessons across several subjects,' she indicated a stern-looking woman in dreary grey robes. 'Any further notices can wait until after the feast.'

McGonagall clapped her hands together, and as the tables ahead of her instantly filled with meats, savouries and sides – and the Hall itself echoed with the appreciative gasps of two hundred children – the Headmistress allowed herself a smile. 'Welcome back.'

'Good, right?' Greg turned to Morgan as the first-year's eyes bulged at the sight of the spread on the table in front of him.

Morgan nodded, dumbfounded. 'Yeah... wow.'

'Anything like your old school?' Greg took the opportunity to sink his teeth into a chicken leg, as the younger boy laughed.

'Nothing like it,' Morgan smiled, picking out a sausage roll to start his meal. 'Nothing at all.'

'So, what did the Hat say to you?' Greg continued the conversation, oblivious to the fact that his question would have sounded utterly ridiculous to a non-magical boy.

'It told me that it could tell I wanted to be in the same house as you guys,' the first-year answered, 'and then it asked if I knew about the history of the Houses. I figured it meant all the things you told me about in the summer, so I said yes... Then the Hat said it sounded like I knew my own mind, and I knew what I wanted, and that made me into enough of a Slytherin as far as it was concerned.'

'Cool,' Greg acknowledged. 'What about you, Leif?''

The blond boy coughed on a mouthful of water 'Me?'

Greg raised his eyebrows. 'I don't see anyone else called Leif down here.'

The first-year blushed. 'I guess not.' He had a halting accent that Greg struggled to place. 'It asked me if I knew any magical ancestors,' Leif spoke stiffly, 'and I don't,' he added, rapidly. 'I don't know how I'm magical,' he looked down at the empty plate in front of him. 'I really don't.'

'It doesn't matter,' Greg comforted the eleven-year-old, even as he wondered how his own magical power had come about. 'Did the Hat tell you why it put you into Slytherin?'

'It said I was taking the first step of a journey, and if I was going to reach the end then I had to learn how to stand up on my own,' Leif muttered, 'and I would learn the fastest in Slytherin.'

'It's right about that,' Greg concluded. 'We learnt so much last year, even things we didn't think we needed to know.' He looked across the hall to the Hufflepuff table, where Glyn and Cameron were happily tearing into their own suppers.

Leif turned, hesitantly, towards Morgan. 'What do you mean about the history of the Houses?'

Morgan swallowed. 'I don't really know much,' he confessed, 'just what they already told me. Slytherin used to be the House all the Dark wizards came from... but it isn't any more,' he added, hurriedly, as Leif's already pale face whitened further.

'Oh...' the blond boy managed.

'That doesn't mean anything now!' Greg interrupted. 'Just because something happened once before, that doesn't mean it's bound to happen again. It's down to us what we want Slytherin to be like! Remember what the Hat said – it's your choices that really matter.'

Leif nodded, albeit forlornly.

'So where are you from, then?' Greg changed the subject, as much to keep the first-year talking as anything.

'Iceland,' the younger boy answered, mechanically, before staring back down at his still untouched plate.

'Hey, really?' Opposite him, Oscar had overhead the younger boys' conversation. 'Cool,' he smiled. 'I went to Iceland this summer with my Dad. Where do you live?'

Leif's expression brightened. 'Reykjavik,' he bit his lip. 'Near Hallgrim's Church.'

'That's the massive one, isn't it?' Oscar gave the first-year his full attention. 'The one that's meant to look like it's made of volcanic rock? It's amazing!'

Greg tuned himself out of the conversation, shaking his head as he whispered into Lucas' ear. 'That's all bollocks,' he covered his mouth. 'He said on the train he couldn't stand the place.'

'So what?' Lucas shrugged. 'Leif needs it,' he glanced down the table. 'I bet those girls don't wanna hear what Theo and Zac have got to say, though... and I bet that's just as much bollocks.'

'More than just bollocks, mate,' Matthew leaned over. 'It's a good laugh, though,' he grinned, attracting a sharp glare from Isaac that only made the fifth-year laugh. 'Keep at it, mate, you might get there one day.'

'What do you think, then?' Theo aimed a question at nobody in particular as the second-years settled back into their familiar dormitory later that evening.

'I think I've got no idea what you're talking about,' Lucas answered, sarcastically. 'What do we think about _what_?'

Theo sighed. 'The Sorting, what else?'

'I couldn't tell,' Greg grinned, mischievously. 'I thought you might have been talking about Pluto not being an official planet any more...'

'Shut up,' Theo laughed. 'What did you think?' He persisted, settling down on his four-poster bed. 'About what the Hat said.'

'It was obvious, wasn't it?' Isaac interjected. 'It was talking about last year, and the Wild Hunt, and how we stopped it cause we worked together.'

'That's not all of it, though,' Lucas argued, almost instantly. 'If it was, it wouldn't have gone on about how evil runs through time... there's more to it than just the Hunt.'

Greg nodded. 'Yeah,' he agreed. 'All that stuff about Dark magic lurking everywhere... it's not exactly starting the year on a bright note, is it? At least we got a decent number of first-years,' he looked for the evening's positives. 'Morgan's gonna be alright, we know that, and Leif's muggle-born, too.'

'Well at least those two talked to you,' Isaac complained. 'The other two boys never said a word.'

'Oh,' Theo smirked. 'I'd forgotten about the way you never stopped talking at the welcome feast last year,' he grinned sarcastically, and Isaac blushed.

'Piss off,' the brown-haired boy shook his head. 'That wasn't the same, and you know it.'

Theo shrugged. 'What about the girls?'

'Wouldn't know,' Greg replied. 'Never got a chance to talk to them, did I?'

The other boys laughed, as Theo stuck his tongue out back towards his best friend. 'Well, _sorry_ ,' he smiled. 'Should have got there first, shouldn't you?'

Greg rolled his eyes. 'I meant, are they muggle-born or what?'

'No,' Theo answered, 'both magical, quite a long way back. Victoria said her family's always been in Slytherin.'

'Well, you'd better watch out there, then,' Lucas remarked. 'You know what Slytherins used to be like.'

'That doesn't mean anything now, though, does it?' Theo countered.

'I'm just saying,' Lucas shrugged.

'What if they're one of these old families that still believes in purebloods?' Isaac asked. 'Mum and Dad might not be very happy if their daughter brings home a mudblood for Christmas.'

Theo fell quiet. 'I guess that would get in the way, right?' He murmured.

'Katie's better looking, anyway,' Isaac tried to lighten his friend's mood.

'Speak for yourself,' Theo snorted. 'There's more of her, if that's what you meant.'

'Theo,' Greg rolled his eyes. 'Have you got any idea how much of a tosser you sound like right now?' He asked.

'What?'

'You heard,' Greg repeated. 'Just cause they're girls, that doesn't mean you have to start talking about them like that.'

'Doesn't mean he doesn't,' Isaac butted in, 'and besides, you should hear how Holly and her friends talk about boys, anyway.'

'That doesn't make it right,' Greg insisted.

'Fine,' Isaac sniped, 'we'll make sure you're not here when we talk about girls, and you make sure we're not here when you talk about boys.'

'Piss off!' Greg snapped back. 'That's not what I meant, and you know it.' He reached for the cord that would pull the drapes closed around his bunk. 'Maybe in the morning you might have grown up!'


	6. Self Defence

It took Greg a handful of seconds after waking up the next morning to remember the argument that had soured the night before, and as the thought crossed his mind he thumped the base of his pillows, hard. 'Tosser,' he said to himself, pushing himself up from his bed and casting his eyes around the quiet dormitory. According to the snake-shaped hands of the clock in the corner of the room, it was not yet six o'clock, but the early September sunshine had begun to spill through the lakeside windows, and Greg was in no mood to skulk back to bed.

Grabbing the first shirt he could find in the top of his trunk, and pulling it carelessly over his freckled shoulders, he made his way up to what he was sure would be an empty common room.

'Hey, Greg.'

'Ossie?' The second-year blinked in surprise, looking across the room to the older boy. 'What are you doing up?'

Oscar grinned. 'I could ask you the same thing,'

'Couldn't sleep,' Greg told a half-truth.

'Well, I'm on prefect duty,' Oscar answered his friend's earlier question. 'First night, someone's meant to be up just in case the first-years need help. Me and Seb have been taking it in turns.'

'Just first-years?' Greg spoke without thinking.

'Why?' The older boy saw through him in an instant. 'What's up?'

Greg sighed. Oscar could tell when something was wrong: he had learnt that last year. What was there to be gained from hiding anything now? 'Last night,' the second-year whispered, slumping onto the black leather of the armchair across from the prefect. 'Isaac was being a tosser,' he relayed the story of the argument in the dormitory.

'Do you think Isaac knew what you meant?' Oscar pushed himself up in his chair as he finished listening to Greg's story, and the younger boy nodded. 'So why do you think he said that?'

Greg shrugged. 'To take the piss?'

'Maybe,' Oscar nodded. 'Do you think he was having a go at you? Do you think he expected you to react like that?'

'Um, well...' Greg swallowed. 'Probably not.' He felt a claw of guilt begin to grasp at his stomach. 'Do... do you think I over-reacted?'

'Do you?'

Greg nodded, slowly. 'It seems so stupid now...'

'It's alright, mate,' Oscar reassured his friend. 'It's the first day back, and everyone's tired after the long journey. It's easy to screw up,' he offered, 'but it's a crappy thing for Zac to be joking about. Do you want me to talk to him?'

'No,' Greg shook his head. 'It's my problem... but thanks, anyway,' he looked up and made eye contact with the prefect for the first time in their conversation. 'So,' he changed the subject, 'how are the first-years?'

'Asleep, I hope,' Oscar smiled. 'I've been here since five, and I haven't seen any of them. Seriously, though, it's hard to tell,' he added. 'I won't mention the girls,' he grinned, and Greg rolled his eyes. 'I sat down, up here, with all of them after we came back from the feast, and told them not to believe any stories they'd heard – and that it was up to us to make the Slytherin into the kind of House we wanted it to be.'

'Like you said to us,' Greg remembered.

The prefect sighed. 'I got about as much out of them, too. I think Morgan's going to be alright, but we knew him already... and Leif, well, you were sat next to him, weren't you? He's scared out his mind. Homesick as well, I'd bet.'

'That's why you were talking to him about Iceland, then...'

'Yeah,' Oscar nodded, 'and I know you think I was making it all up, but some of the things Dad showed us really _were_ interesting. I'd just rather go somewhere a bit hotter in the summer.'

'Yeah, me too.' Greg smiled. 'So what have you been doing since five o'clock, then?'

Oscar picked up a book from the table beside his armchair. 'Reading this,' he answered. 'Beyond the Wand – Professor Jenkins' textbook.'

'Any good?'

The fifth-year groaned. 'It feels like it's been written by Binns,' he complained. 'Some of the stuff makes sense, but it's bloody hard to read without feeling like you're going to pass out. Check this out,' he opened the hardback, scouring for an early page before passing it across to the younger boy. 'Line-of-sight.'

Greg took the book from his friend and began to read aloud. 'The inherent topological advantages present in the majority of rural landscapes make strategic positioning and careful utilisation of the natural relief an essential factor in determining the outcome of many contests...' He lowered the book again, and exhaled deeply. 'Bloody hell! I don't know how you stayed awake, trying to read that!'

'Not easy, mate,' Oscar laughed. 'Not easy at all. I guess History of Magic lessons have taught me something after all...' He grinned. 'Have you looked at your new textbook yet?'

Greg winced. 'Only a little,' he answered. 'I wondered if there was anything in it about Wisht Hounds and the Wild Hunt, and there isn't, not really...' he swallowed. 'There's a chapter about spectral animals and legends and ghosts, but most of the book's about, um, real live creatures.'

'Things that can bite or scratch you, basically?' Oscar asked, and the second-year nodded. 'That's usually Hagrid's bit,' he observed. 'Well, we'll soon see, I guess...' The boys' conversation continued, skipping from one subject to another as they killed the time before breakfast, until the noise of feet against the spiral staircase that led up from the dormitories caught their attention.

Greg stiffened as he noticed Isaac's figure standing on the top step, with Theo and Lucas just behind him. 'Morning,' Greg offered, stiltedly.

'Hi,' Isaac replied, equally stiffly, taking a handful of nervous paces towards the other second-year. 'Look, about last night,' his words started to tumble out. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like you thought I did...'

'It doesn't matter...'

'It wasn't funny anyway...'

'It's okay, I over-reacted...'

'I shouldn't have said it...'

'Alright, alright!' Oscar raised his voice, drowning out the two twelve-year-olds' stumbling apologies. 'We get it! You're _both_ screw-ups!'

Theo laughed, and soon the other second-years had joined in. 'Slytherins stick together, remember?' He held his hand out, and the other boys copied his gesture. 'Always.'

'Good,' Oscar added, as they let their hands break apart again. 'No good having you lot arguing when we're trying to get the new first-years to settle in alright.' He took a breath. 'You do know that's a crappy thing to make jokes about, right, Zac?'

Isaac nodded, forlornly. 'Yeah,' he admitted. 'Like that squib joke last year,' Isaac shivered at the memory.

'Okay,' the prefect acknowledged the younger boy. 'So, all's forgiven, then?'

'Yes,' Greg answered, forcefully, before changing the subject of their conversation pointedly. 'It must be nearly breakfast time by now, right? Shall we go and see if it's ready yet?'

Greg's hopeful forecast proved accurate, and as the boys settled down to their first breakfast of the new year, the topic of their conversation moved towards the term ahead, and – most pressingly, as it was a Saturday – what they would do with the coming weekend. With the sun out, however, the warm grass of the fields and the invitingly cool shore of the Black Lake made any discussion redundant.

Come the end of Sunday evening's supper, as the Heads of Houses scuttled around the Great Hall, passing out timetables and finalising arrangements for the term ahead, it was almost a shock for the second-years to remember they had lessons the following morning.

'Double Defence first thing tomorrow,' Theo read his sheet of parchment, 'with the Gryffindors again.'

'I think we're with the same Houses as last year for everything,' Lucas scanned his copy of the timetable. 'Yeah, everything.'

'It doesn't look as busy as last year...' Isaac remarked. 'Where are the study lessons?'

'Study lessons?' Oscar overheard. 'They're for first-years only!' He smiled as Isaac let out a yell of delight. 'You're still meant to do the work though, just without all that extra help.'

'We've got extra periods in Defence and Charms, too,' Greg noted, 'but at least Wednesday morning looks alright.'

Lucas shook his head. 'We'll be catching up then, instead. Look at the homework on Monday and Tuesday... and we'll have Quidditch practice that night, too, won't we?'

'Matt?' Isaac repeated his friend's question, only more loudly and with much less subtlety. 'When's Quidditch practice this year?'

'What?' Matthew looked up. 'Who says you're on the team again?' He grinned, before glancing back at his timetable. 'Probably Tuesdays, same as last year.'

'How's yours look, Morgan?' Greg asked the first-year, suddenly conscious of the fact that he paid very little attention to the younger boy since the evening of the Sorting.

Morgan shrugged, showing the sheet of parchment to his housemate. 'I don't know what any of this means,' he muttered.

'Oh,' Greg ran his eyes over the first-year's timetable. 'That looks just like ours did last year... except you've got your lessons with different Houses... you've got loads more with Ravenclaw than we ever did.'

'What do these subjects mean?' Morgan asked, plaintively. 'I mean, I can guess History, and Potions, but what's Transfiguration, and Charms?'

'Transfiguration is changing stuff from one thing to another,' Greg answered, 'and Charms is just wand work. You'll be fine,' he added, dismissively. 'It'll all make sense when you get used to it.' He glanced upwards, noticing the other second-years getting up from the table and stood to follow them back to the Slytherin dungeons. 'See you tomorrow,' he called behind him, leaving Morgan sitting on his own and staring at his timetable for the term ahead.

'That's the problem,' the first-year whispered to himself. 'I'm not used to it yet.'

The previous year, Defence Against the Dark Arts had taken place in a long, narrow classroom at the base of the Gryffindor tower, not far from the ground floor apartment that Greg now knew that Jacob Tregeagle still called home. This year, however, with a change of staffing, their lessons had moved across the castle, to a corridor that was not far from the school kitchens. The four Slytherins arrived to find the classroom door open, and a handful of their friends already waiting inside.

'Hey, guys,' Theo greeted four of the Gryffindor boys, before glancing around the spartan classroom. 'Not much here, is there...?'

'No,' Aidan Mills, a boy with a thin face and a bundle of messy brown hair answered. 'We were just saying, this is his first lesson, he must want to try something funny on us.'

'Yeah,' the blond Slytherin nodded. 'I mean, what is there? There's like one desk in that corner,' he gestured to what was obviously the teacher's own small table, planted in front of a comfortable-looking recliner.

'A few plants,' Aidan added.

'More than a few plants,' Isaac countered, 'that looks like a bloody forest over in that corner!'

'Look at the ground as well,' Spencer Dawlish, sharp-featured and spiky-haired, remarked. 'It's like it's covered in moss or something,' he peered closer, trotting over to the end of the room. 'Feels like it as well.'

Ciaran Abercrombie followed his housemate to inspect the vegetation. 'Weird,' he concluded, running his hand through his sandy fringe. 'Wonder what that's for? What are we meant to be learning this year?'

As Ciaran spoke, a number of the boys' heads turned automatically towards Joshua, and although they looked away almost as quickly, the other Gryffindor had easily noticed his friends' attention.

'I don't know,' he sighed, staring down at his own feet. 'I did ask Dad, and he said he would have looked at more powerful counter-curses and things like that, but the new guy will be allowed to do it how he wants to...' he tailed off, and Greg jumped in to change the subject.

'There's a few things over there as well, aren't there?' He pointed towards a shadow that stuck out behind the open door, and Theo quickly followed his friend's direction.

'Looks like it's just a bunch of scrap metal,' he poked his head into the shade. 'Weird,' he echoed Ciaran's description of the imitation forest, before letting a shard of the collection drop to the ground with a clatter as a gaggle of Gryffindors, with Isaac's sister Holly amongst their number, streamed through the doorway into the room.

'I didn't know we were doing Harpies yet,' Isaac deadpanned, before breaking into a smile as his friends laughed. 'Hey, Greg,' he chastised the other boy, mockingly, 'I thought I wasn't meant to talk about girls like that?'

Greg blushed. 'It's fine for _them_ ,' he tried to regain his composure, 'you can talk about Megan Campbell any way you want.'

The second-years' chatter was brought to a halt, however, as a door on the far side of the room swung open at the same time as the door onto the corridor snapped shut. 'Good morning, students,' Dylan Jenkins, the man who had replaced Joshua's father as the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, stood, barely a head taller than the boys, in the second doorway, his bald head reflecting the low candlelight around the room, and adding to the glow that the burnished yellow trim of his robes seemed to emit in the semi-darkness.

'Way to make an entrance,' Theo whispered in Greg's ear. 'It's like a Houdini show or something.'

'Dylan Jenkins,' the man introduced himself, and for a handful of the second-years, the soft Welsh lilt in his accent stood out immediately. 'Ex-Auror,' he continued, 'as my predecessor was before me.' The professor's eyes scanned the gathered children, and a couple of the boys edged closer to Joshua. 'My condolences,' Jenkins lowered his voice. 'This is not the way in which I would have wished to take up this position,' he bowed his head for a moment, 'but take it, someone must,' he sighed. 'So, who can tell me what you have learned in the last year?'

Spencer lifted a hand, cautiously, and the professor turned to face him.

'Yes, Mr...'

'Dawlish,' the Gryffindor answered. 'Spencer Dawlish. We learned Stupefy.'

Jenkins nodded, before reaching for his wand so quickly that the boy had barely noticed its movement by the time the teacher spoke. 'Stupefy!' A jet of red light shot from his wand, striking Spencer squarely in the chest and knocking him swiftly to the ground. 'The stunning spell,' Jenkins repeated, almost in a whisper. 'Effective, if a little crude,' he flicked his wand towards the lifeless twelve-year-old, sending out a white beam that roused the boy.

'What the...' Spencer stammered, as Joshua helped him to his feet. 'What happened?'

'Stupefy, Mr Dawlish,' the teacher repeated. 'That was the spell you recalled, yes?'

'Yes, sir,' Spencer nodded, hurriedly.

'Five points to Gryffindor,' he concluded. 'Anyone else?' Jenkins regarded his class, who looked shiftily at one another in turn, wondering if anyone saw the House points as a reward worth suffering for.

'Sir?' The long silence broke as Isaac spoke up, drawing the room's attention. 'Isaac Davies. We learned Levicorpus.'

Jenkins nodded, simply. 'Levicorpus!'

'Protego!'

The flash of light that sparked from the teacher's wand struck a purple sphere that had grown in front of the Slytherin, and rebounded across the classroom before crashing aimlessly into part of the panelled wall as a wide grin creased Jenkins' face.

'Very good, Mr Davies. Very good indeed. Ten points to Slytherin!' A brief cheer sounded as Theo ruffled his friend's hair in congratulation, before the boys fell quiet as the teacher spoke once more.

'Attack, and Defence. The fundamentals of conflict, whether magical or physical, summed up in one exchange.' He flicked his wand again, conjuring loose tabards around the chests of the waiting children. 'This will be very simple,' the professor intoned. 'The colour of your vest signifies your team. The team of the last man standing wins.'

There was a split second of silence before the first wand was drawn, and the stillness of the lesson disintegrated into a free-for-all of wild lights. Several of the students ducked for cover as others crumpled to the floor amidst the scattering of spells. Greg threw himself to the ground, rolling hurriedly behind the stack of scrap metal that he had noticed minutes earlier, peering over a shard of corrugated iron as he scanned the horizon, his wand drawn, for friend or foe.

'Ciaran! Over here!' Greg yelled, noticing the yellow fabric stretched around his friend's waist that showed he was a team mate. 'Protego!' He aimed a weak shield in the Gryffindor's direction, covering Ciaran's back as the sandy-haired boy skidded in beside him.

'Thanks,' Ciaran breathed. 'Do you know who else is on our team?'

Greg glanced left and right, before his eyes came to rest on a motionless body. 'One of the Gryffindor girls,' he answered. 'Not that she's gonna be any use to us now.'

Ciaran grimaced, bunkering down beside his friend in the shadow of the scrap metal. 'What the hell's going on...?'

'It's a war game, isn't it?' Greg replied, unsteadily, watching Isaac roll away from a stray curse, before springing to his feet and launching his own offensive spells in to the mix. 'Aidan said he'd want to try something funny on us...'

Ciaran stifled a laugh. 'It won't be funny if someone gets hurt,' he deadpanned.

'No one will get hurt,' Greg answered without thinking about it. 'No one knows any spells strong enough to do that... now keep quiet and hope no one sees us.' He pressed himself tight to the ground, subtly manoeuvring some of the shards of sheet metal into a makeshift barricade, and peering into a gap to watch the open combat that still raged throughout Professor Jenkins' classroom as the teacher looked impassively on.

A well-aimed leg-locker curse from Spencer Dawlish took care of Chloe Marshall, the last girl left standing, but the Gryffindor had to duck smartly to avoid a riposte from Aidan, Chloe's erstwhile team mate.

'You'll need to do better than that, mate!' Dawlish taunted, spinning around to face his housemate and forcing him to dodge in turn. The spiky-haired boy's attack was halted, however, as a jet of white light emerged from the treetops in the corner of the classroom, striking him on the shoulder and leaving Aidan with the simple task of casting a body-bind curse that would take Dawlish out of the reckoning for the second time that lesson.

'Looks like we're not the only ones hiding,' Greg whispered to Ciaran, 'someone must be up there.'

'They've given themselves away now, though,' the Gryffindor observed, accurately, as Lucas and Isaac halted their own clumsy duel to stare at the tree-tops.

'Truce,' Lucas lowered his wand. 'We can't win if there's someone in the trees taking us out.'

Isaac nodded. 'I bet they're on Aidan's side, too.' He spun on his heel, turning sharply to the Gryffindor. 'Expelliarmus!'

'Immobulus!' Lucas followed the other boy's attack with a spell of his own, paralysing Aidan before looking back to the branches of the forest ahead of them. 'Who do you think's up there?'

'Who's left?' Isaac answered with a question of his own. 'Greg, Ciaran...'

'Theo?'

'No,' the brown-haired boy shook his head. 'I got him when he was fighting Holly.'

'Right,' Lucas nodded. 'All the girls are out, and so are Aidan and Spencer.'

'It could be Josh,' Isaac suggested. 'How are we going to get him down?' He bit his lip in thought, before quickly flashing a shield charm around himself as another jet of light dropped from the leaves.

Lucas' brow furrowed. 'Can we cut the tree down? Would Diffindo work?'

'Can you do Diffindo?' Isaac shrugged. 'What about Incendio?'

'What, burn it down?' Lucas swallowed. 'Is that safe?'

Isaac grinned. 'That depends if he wants to stay in it or not.'

'No, not that!' The redhead snapped back. 'I mean the classroom! The walls are wood, aren't they? What about the floorboards?'

'That's the professor's problem, isn't it?' Isaac concluded, coldly. 'He said Last Man Standing... INCENDIO!' He jabbed his wand towards the tree roots, which begun to smoulder and crackle before the beginnings of small flames took hold, successfully evicting the boy in the branches from his hiding place.

'What the hell are you doing?' Joshua shinned hurriedly down the back of the tree trunk, rushing to snuff out the fire with the heel of his left foot.

'Getting you down out of that bloody tree,' Isaac was unperturbed, 'and it's worked, hasn't it?'

'You could have bloody killed me!' Joshua's temper flared, and a jet of uncontrolled red light speared out of his wand towards the Slytherin. The spell beat Isaac's feeble attempt at a shield charm before scoring a thick gash on his right thigh, which began to leak with blood even before the brown-haired boy screamed as he hit the ground.

'Zac!' Lucas turned, wide-eyed with horror, as Isaac fell. 'Josh!' He stammered. 'What was that?'

The colour in Joshua's face had drained to an ashen white and, though he tried to open his mouth to answer Lucas' question, no words came out.

'Alright!' Professor Jenkins' voice boomed out over the panicked silence. 'Cease fire!' He hurried across the room, dropping to his knees alongside the stricken Slytherin. 'Vulnera Sanentur,' he intoned. 'Vulnera Sanentur...'

'Sir...' Lucas whispered, nervously, as Greg and Ciaran emerged from their hiding place. 'What happened?'

'A curse,' Jenkins answered, abruptly, 'but I suppose you knew that. As to which curse, however, I am little wiser than you. I have my theories, but without an incantation...'

'Wasn't it just accidental magic, sir?' Greg suggested. 'He didn't mean it, did he?'

'I didn't!' Joshua latched onto Greg's offering desperately. 'Isaac, you know I didn't!'

Isaac groaned, wincing as the wound began to heal under the professor's care.

'I swear I didn't!' Joshua repeated, almost hyperventilating as his breath escaped in fits and starts. 'I don't even know what that was!'

'I believe you, Josh,' Greg reassured his friend. 'He's going to be alright, isn't he, sir?' He squatted beside Isaac, as his housemate made a shaky attempt to get to his feet.

Jenkins nodded, holding an arm out as insurance should Isaac lose his balance. 'Yes, I expect so,' the professor answered. 'Almost all scars will heal if you treat them quickly enough.'

'I'm sorry,' Joshua held his hand out. 'Really.'

Isaac nodded, unsteadily. 'It's fine,' he mumbled. 'I should have blocked it, and besides, I did just try and burn down the tree you were in... I guess I kind of deserved it.'

The professor breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the boys shake hands. 'I think this ought to be game over, boys, wouldn't you agree?'

'Agreed,' the five children echoed, glancing around the scattered debris and motionless bodies that littered the room.

'Do you know Rennervate?' Jenkins asked.

The boys looked to one another, before Greg spoke up for the group of them. 'We know the spell, but we've never tried it,' he explained. 'We know Finite Incantatem.'

Jenkins smiled, grimly. 'That will have to do.'

It took the children and their teacher less than five minutes to revive their classmates, before Professor Jenkins called them into the corner of the room by the forest, perching himself on the roots of the tree that Isaac had attacked as the students gathered on the floorboards around him.

'Now then,' the teacher began, 'I know what I wanted you to learn today,' he paused, 'but the way things have turned out, there's going to be rather more than just that one thing.' He looked around the sober faces of the children in front of him. 'What do you think you've learned?'

Greg raised a tentative hand. 'Never let your guard down,' he offered, 'always be prepared?'

Jenkins nodded. 'I am sure you all know that accidental magic is most often seen when someone is angry, or frightened – and what is more frightening than the midst of battle?' A flicker of agreement murmured around the room before the teacher continued. 'Anybody else?'

'Healing spells,' Lucas suggested. 'I know you said most scars will heal if you get them quick enough, but if you didn't know that spell then Zac might still be bleeding...' he tailed off.

'One of the most important spells I have ever learned,' the professor agreed with the twelve-year-old's idea. 'How many healing spells do you know?'

'Me?' Lucas stuttered, surprised. 'Um... Tergeo, Episkey...'

Jenkins raised an eyebrow. 'Can you use them?'

Lucas winced. 'No,' he whispered.

'Worth learning this year then, I dare say,' the professor concluded, and none of the second-years argued. 'Joshua,' he turned to the Gryffindor boy. 'What about you? Why were you in the treetops?'

'It was the best place to be,' Joshua answered, slowly. 'I could see them, but they couldn't see me.'

Professor Jenkins managed a thin smile. 'Now, this was the point that I really wanted to make,' he concurred. 'The land around you can be your greatest ally, or your fiercest enemy... depending on how you use it.'


	7. Curse Words

There was a hush at the Slytherin table as the four second-years headed to the Great Hall for lunch that Monday, and as the boys glanced across the room they knew there was barely any more vigour amongst the red and gold ties.

'Josh isn't there,' Lucas whispered to his friends as they began their meal.

'Really?' Isaac craned his neck, looking back over his shoulder. 'Wonder where he is...'

Greg followed his friend's glance. 'I hope he's alright,' he thought aloud.

'Excuse me?' Isaac baulked. ' _He's_ alright? He wasn't the one who had his leg ripped apart...'

'You're fine,' Greg dismissed the brown-haired boy's complaint. 'You should have seen his face after that spell hit you. It was like that night when the Hunt came back all over again.'

Theo nodded. 'Mental scars can be worse than physical scars,' he offered, through a mouthful of turkey. 'That's what...'

'Your rugby coach said, right?' Isaac finished. 'Let me guess, he's got plenty of experience with curse scars?'

Greg smirked. 'More than he thinks, after this summer. That reminds me,' he took a breath, 'have you seen Morgan today?'

'No,' Theo shook his head. 'Him and Leif seem alright, though, don't they?'

'Have they said much to you?' Greg enquired.

'Not really,' the other boy shook his head, 'but it looks like they're sticking together, doesn't it?'

'Maybe,' Greg swallowed, thoughtfully, 'but we should check on them, shouldn't we? Make sure they're okay?'

'Probably,' Isaac answered, 'but we _should_ have started on that defence essay during that free period, and we didn't.'

Lucas rolled his eyes. 'Speak for yourself, Zac' he grumbled. 'I did eight inches, and you're _not_ just copying it.'

'Aww, Lukie...' Isaac put on a pleading voice. 'Can't I even have a look?'

'No!' The redhead snapped. 'Do your own work for once!'

Greg shook his head, grinning as he watched his two friends squabble over their homework, whilst he finished off his meal. 'I'm going to go see whether they know where Josh is,' he related, getting to his feet. 'See you in Transfig, right?'

'Right,' Theo's reply echoed absently in Greg's ears as he stood up to cross the room, nodding in greeting as he approached the Gryffindor table.

'Hey, guys,' he offered.

'Hey, Greg,' Ciaran Abercrombie looked up. 'Some lesson, wasn't it?'

Greg managed a thin smile. 'You could say that,' he reflected. 'Particularly if you were Josh.'

'Yeah,' Ciaran nodded, slowly.

'Do you know where Josh is now?' The Slytherin continued.

Ciaran shook his head, shaking the fringe of his sandy hair with it. 'We just had Potions,' the boy explained. 'He was with us then. He said he needed to go somewhere...' Ciaran added, cryptically.

'Right,' Greg acknowledged. 'Thanks. If you see him, tell him I asked. See you later.' He turned away, his thoughts instantly jumping to the Room of Requirement as he made his way towards the double doors at the edge of the Great Hall. 'Now how do I get there?' Greg whispered to himself. 'I know it's on the seventh floor, but...'

It was a month since Greg had set foot in the Room of Requirement, and he doubted that he could have described the route he took from the castle doors, but the twelve-year-old's instinct quickly brought him to the easily recognisable painting of the ballet-dancing trolls. He glanced left and right, quickly drawing back against the stone wall as he heard the sound of footsteps echo from the far end of the corridor, before emerging again as the noise died away.

'Now,' he murmured, standing out in front of the brickwork, and beginning to pace to and fro, 'I need to see the room where Josh is hiding...' Greg smiled to himself as a doorway blurred into his vision. He reached out and took its handle, finding himself back in the games room he had shared with his friend during the first weeks of the summer holiday. 'Josh...' he called. 'I know you're in here.'

A loud sniff answered Greg's appeal, and the blond Slytherin turned around, his gaze falling upon the room's deep recliners.

'Josh,' he repeated, weakly, as his eyes fell upon the other boy's blotched face. 'Zac's fine,' he told his friend. 'No one blames you. We know it was only accidental magic.'

Joshua shook his head, morosely. 'That's not it,' he whispered, barely lifting himself to make eye contact with his friend.

Greg crossed the room slowly, sitting down on the chair opposite Joshua. 'Then what is it?' He pressed, before wishing he hadn't as the Gryffindor shivered. 'Sorry,' he apologised, letting the room fall quiet and allowing his own attention to drift away, before finally settling on a thick, tattered book that was resting on a low table between the two boys' chairs.

'Magick Moste Evile,' Greg lifted up the book, glancing at the title along its spine before beginning to read to himself from the open pages. 'The Sectumsempra curse is capable of causing deep flesh wounds that are impervious to common healing spells. When uttered, its effect is the equivalent of an invisible sword, slashing the target repeatedly. The injuries follow the movements of the caster's wand, and the spell inflicts the most damage if cast with rapid waving movements...' The twelve-year-old swallowed, re-reading the paragraph once again. 'Josh... You don't think...'

'What else could it be?' The Gryffindor suddenly snapped. 'Look at the counter-spell it gives! It's the same one that Jenkins used!'

Greg swallowed, lifting up the heavy volume. 'There is no known counter-spell at present, however the healing charm _Vulnera Sanentur_ is known to repair any wounds inflicted by the curse. It is not sufficiently powerful, however, to reattach any severed body parts.'

'See,' Josh moaned. 'That _is_ it,' his head dropped back into his hands. 'If Dad ever finds out...'

'You didn't mean it, though,' Greg tried to reason with his friend. 'It was accidental magic, even Jenkins said so.'

'Accidental _Dark_ magic,' Joshua corrected the other boy, as a fresh burst of tears threatened to spill from his eyes. 'I'm turning into a Dark wizard,' his voice began to grow hysterical, 'I'm only twelve! I don't want to go to Azkaban...'

Greg struggled to keep his mouth from falling open as he watched the Gryffindor losing the last shreds of his composure. 'You're not...' he stammered, before Joshua turned away, disconsolate. 'You're not going to Azkaban,' Greg insisted, knowing full well he was unlikely to hear a reply, 'and you're not a Dark wizard, just because you used one Dark spell, _by accident_.' He sighed, looking down at his watch. Transfiguration, the final lesson of the day, had already started. 'Remember what the Sorting Hat said about choices. Dark wizards set out to hurt people, to make them suffer, _on purpose._ That's not you.'

'It was, last year.'

'It's not any more!' Greg shouted. 'I know it isn't, Josh, so don't try telling yourself it is, not after everything that happened, don't try telling _me_ nothing's changed!'

'I'm sorry,' Joshua mumbled. 'It's just...'

'Don't, Josh,' Greg cut his friend off. 'I know.'

A thin, watery smile edged onto the Gryffindor's face. 'Thanks, Greg.'

'It's okay,' the Slytherin returned his friend's grin. 'Have you got any lessons left today?' He asked, only for Joshua to shake his head. 'Well, I have,' Greg explained. 'So I guess I'd better get going.'

'Alright,' Joshua nodded as Greg turned away. 'See you at supper.'

The Slytherin found himself greeted by an unfamiliar, icy voice as he pushed open the door of a second-floor classroom a few minutes later. 'Mr Bennett,' it sneered. 'I'm so glad you could grace us with your presence.'

'Uh...' the boy blinked, his eyes slowly focusing on the figure of Joanna Holte, the "cover" teacher that McGonagall had introduced at the welcome feast. She was standing at the front of the classroom, in front of a blackboard, stretching the length of the wall, which was already more than half-covered with notes. 'Sorry.'

'Sorry, Professor Holte,' the teacher corrected him. 'Would you care to enlighten us as to why you are,' she checked a pocket watch, 'nearly half an hour late for my lesson?'

Greg shook his head, sliding into a desk beside Theo at the rear of the room.

'I'm sorry?'

'No,' the twelve-year-old glowered. 'No, Professor Holte,' he emphasised the teacher's name. 'I wouldn't.'

Holte tutted, dismissively. 'Ten points from Slytherin, for your tardiness,' she snapped, ' _and_ a detention for your cheek. Whatever it was that made you late, I hope it was worth it.'

'What the hell was her problem?' Greg waited until the four Slytherins were back in the safety of their own dungeon before letting go of his anger, hurling himself down onto one of the long, black sofas in a fit of rage. 'What did I do?' He threw his school bag down onto the floor beside his seat.

'I dunno, Greg,' an older voice called from the other side of the common room. 'What did you do?'

'Detention, Matt,' Lucas answered, quietly. 'From Holte, because he was half an hour late.'

Matthew Sawyer smirked, getting to his feet as he heard the second-year's reply. 'First _day_ of school, Greg?' He strolled across the room, leaning over the sofa and dropping his arms over the younger boy's shoulders. 'I thought you set the record last year, and were going to have trouble beating that...'

'Piss off, Matt,' Greg knocked the teenager's arms away. 'It's not funny.'

Matthew grinned. 'It is, a bit...'

Theo snorted, in spite of himself.

'So you think it's funny, too, do you?' Greg jerked upright, turning on his best friend. 'It wouldn't have been so funny if it was you, would it?'

'Greg...' Theo held his hands up. 'I didn't mean it like that, mate. Holte's a bitch, we all know that.'

'I bet it turns out she's a crap teacher, too,' the blond boy's rage had only slightly dulled. 'If she had any idea why I was late...'

'Greg,' Theo ventured, glancing around the other boys. 'None of us know why you were late, either.'

'Oh,' Greg swallowed, following his friend's lead in looking around the room. 'You knew I was going to look for Josh, right?'

'Yeah,' Isaac answered, 'but you were gone for nearly an hour. What happened?'

'Oh,' Greg echoed, emptily. He crumpled backwards, sinking back into the sofa behind him. 'I found Josh,' he mumbled, remembering the two boys' promise to keep their discovery quiet. 'He found out what curse he'd used on you earlier,' Greg looked up, making eye contact with Isaac for a split second. 'Sectumsempra,' he whispered.

'Sectumsempra?' Isaac echoed, loudly.

'Shh,' Lucas glared at his friend, quickly silencing the other second-year. 'It's Dark Magic,' the redhead mumbled. 'It was one of the Death Eaters' favourite spells...'

Greg blinked. 'Lukie? How did you know...?'

'Kevin,' the redhead answered, simply, and the room fell silent around him.

'What happened?' Oscar Symons, the other Slytherin fifth-year, greeted his friends as he climbed the staircase that led from the dormitories in the dungeon's basement. 'You guys look like someone died.'

'Isaac could have,' Lucas winced.

Oscar halted. 'What?' He exclaimed. 'What do you mean? What happened?'

'Defence,' the second-year began to explain. 'Jenkins had us doing Last Man Standing... and Josh cursed Isaac.' His voice dropped. 'Sectumsempra. A Dark curse.'

Oscar gasped. 'What?' He repeated himself. ' _Josh_ did that, on purpose?'

'Not on purpose,' Greg interrupted, defending his friend. 'It was an accident,' he maintained. 'He didn't even say the incantation. Zac had just tried to burn down the tree he was in...'

'Are you alright, Zac?' The older boy turned to the other second-year.

Isaac nodded. 'Fine,' he assured the prefect, lifting up the leg of his canvas shorts. 'Not even a scar.'

'I don't think Josh is, though.' Greg sighed.

'Why?' Isaac queried. 'I don't get it...'

'Oh, for Merlin's sake, Zac,' Oscar rolled his eyes. 'You aren't half thick sometimes. Think about who his Dad is, and what he must have got told whilst he was growing up.'

'Remember our first Defence lesson last year,' Greg grimaced, ignoring Theo's involuntary shudder. 'Dark magic comes from everywhere... Anyone could become a Dark wizard.'

'So he thinks that it's him, right?' Oscar surmised. 'He thinks he's a Dark wizard?'

Greg nodded. 'Pretty much.'

Matthew shook his head. 'As if he didn't have enough going on already. So,' he continued, changing the subject. 'What's your detention?'

'Don't know,' Greg shrugged. 'She said she'd let Slughorn deal with it. I guess I'll find out in Potions.'

It was no surprise, then, when Greg heard his his name at the end of the following Friday's lesson.

'Mr Bennett,' Slughorn had called as his pupils stood up to clear their belongings away. 'Could I have a moment of your time, please?'

Greg winced. 'See, told you,' he sighed, whispering to Glyn as the Welsh boy got to his feet alongside him. 'Time to find out what Holte's got in store for me.'

'Oh, and Mr Jones?' The teacher added as the Hufflepuff squeezed past his friend. 'You too, please.'

'What have _I_ done?' Glyn glanced nervously at the other second-year.

The Slytherin shook his head. 'I don't know,' he shrugged. 'Wait and see what he says.'

'Mr Bennett,' Slughorn repeated the boy's name. 'I hear you've been getting yourself into trouble again, young man.'

'Yes, sir,' the boy shuffled towards the professor's desk, staring down at his feet.

The teacher took a deep breath, scouring his desk for a yellow slip of paper. 'Poor punctuality and an insubordinate attitude,' he raised his eyebrows.

'I was late,' Greg mumbled, without lifting his head, 'and I didn't tell her why.'

'Then will you tell me why?' The tone of Slughorn's voice didn't alter, and Greg shook his head.

'I'm sorry, sir,' he swallowed, 'but it's private.'

The professor allowed himself a small chuckle. 'I expected as much. Slytherin through and through, eh?' Now,' he smiled, wryly, changing the subject, 'as for the matter of your detention. There'll be no more cauldrons, you'll be pleased to hear.'

Both second-years managed a short snort of laughter, recalling the Sunday morning they had spent in the potions classroom almost twelve months ago.

'You see, I used to hold these little evenings, dinner parties if you will,' Slughorn began to expound. 'Collections of the best and brightest at Hogwarts,' he continued, 'and I rather need some waiting staff. House-elves aren't the best conversationalists.'

Greg blinked, lifting his head to make eye contact with the teacher for the first time. 'You want me to come and be a waiter?' He stammered. 'For my detention?'

'Madam Holte tells me here to deal with you as I see fit,' the professor indicated a scrawl on the yellow parchment.

A smile began to spread over Greg's face. 'So you thought you'd get a bit of use out of me whilst you were at it,' the boy grinned. 'Slytherin through and through.'

'I thought you'd understand,' Slughorn nodded, before turning his attention to the other second-year. 'As for you, Mr Jones, as the son of a former member of the _Slug Club_ , well, you are more than welcome to attend!'

'Sorry...?' The Welsh boy faltered. 'Me?'

Slughorn laughed, jovially. 'Yes, you! Son of Gwenog Jones, captain of the Holyhead Harpies!' He gestured grandly towards a photograph of Glyndwr's mother, sitting proudly on a mantel behind him. 'It would have helped our Quidditch teams no end if Gwenog had been a Slytherin. That's not all, though,' the teacher shook himself. 'I hear you're a rather special wizard in your own right... The Heir of Merlin?'

Glyn blushed. 'I just said that. I didn't mean it.'

'It worked though, didn't it?' Slughorn's eyes sparkled. 'How many twelve-year-olds have faced the Wild Hunt and lived to tell the tale?'

'It was just lucky,' the Hufflepuff insisted.

'All the same,' the teacher would not be dissuaded. 'I believe you make your own luck. There's something out-of-the-ordinary about you, young man,' he insisted, 'and I'd like to get to know you rather better. What say you?' Slughorn pottered across the room, peering into Isaac's cauldron and nodding approvingly. 'Next Friday evening?'

Glyn glanced towards his friend. 'What do you think, Greg?' he asked, timidly.

The Slytherin shrugged. 'What have you got to lose, mate?' He paused. 'Besides, I could use some company.'

'I suppose,' Glyn managed a thin smile, before turning to announce his decision to the professor. 'I'll come,' he declared.

'Excellent,' Slughorn beamed. 'I shall let you know the time and the place next week. Off you go now,' he dismissed the two boys with a wave of his hand. 'Oh, and Greg,' he added, just as they reached the door, 'do try to avoid getting into any further trouble, will you? It will be awfully hard to arrange a second detention that's so, how should I say it, _profitable_.'

'Yes, Professor,' Greg called out over his shoulder, as he left the classroom. 'Thank you, Professor... Ow!' His attention snapped back to the corridor in front of him. 'Thomas?' He gasped, as where his eyes blurred into focus on one of the Slytherin first-years.

'Sorry...' the younger boy mumbled, picking himself up from the dusty ground. 'Wasn't looking...'

Greg blinked, offering an arm to help the eleven-year-old up. 'Where were you going?'

'To see Slughorn,' Thomas Fitch stared at his feet. 'I've got Potions next,' he added. 'I wanted to ask him something.'

'You could have asked Isaac,' Greg suggested. 'He got an O in Potions last year.'

Thomas shook his head, firmly. 'I want to see Slughorn,' he repeated.

'Fine,' Greg rolled his eyes, standing to one side to let the first-year hurry past. 'First-years,' he groaned. 'Tell me we weren't like that.'

Glyn shrugged. 'Let's see if he ends up scrubbing cauldrons all weekend,' he reasoned, 'then we'll know if he's like you or not.'

'Ouch,' the Slytherin smiled. 'Maybe I shouldn't have asked for your company after all...'


	8. Water Leapers

'What do you think he's got in store for us this week, then?' Isaac greeted the second-year Gryffindors outside Professor Jenkins' classroom the following Monday.

'I don't know,' Joshua responded, grimly, 'but I'm keeping my wand in my pocket if I can help it.'

'I don't blame you, mate,' Greg sympathised with his friend's decision, but was stopped short of adding anything extra by the slow creak of the door hinges.

Dylan Jenkins' bald head appeared in the doorway. 'Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.' He stepped backwards, pulling the door inward as he did so, and allowed the children to enter a room that couldn't have been much more different to the battlefield they had left a week earlier.

'What's that?' A disjointed chorus of voices asked much the same question as the second-years noticed the room's lighting reflecting back from one side of its floor.

'It's water.'

'What, inside?'

'He had a forest last week.'

'It's like a swimming pool…'

Claim and counter-claim jostled for volume, before each fell silent under the teacher's raised voice.

'Last week we learned a number of lessons,' the professor intoned, 'and I will be interested to see how many of these have truly been taken on board. Today, we look at another part of our surroundings that you underestimate at your peril.'

'Water?' Aidan asked aloud.

Jenkins answered by repeat. 'Water,' he echoed, his tone carrying far more finality than the boy's question had done. 'Any volunteers?'

The crowd of children shuffled fractionally forward, towards the point where the panelled floor of the classroom dipped slowly beneath the murky surface. The pool stretched back almost a dozen metres, filling all but half of the low, wide room, and as the second years peered into its surface, they discovered they couldn't make out much beyond the first few feet.

'To go in there?' Greg checked he had properly understood the man's question.

Jenkins nodded.

Greg exhaled, sharply. 'We can't see!' he protested. 'We don't know how deep it is, what's on the bottom, what's in there…'

A thin smile spread across the teacher's face. 'Correct, Mr Bennett. Five points to Slytherin,' he paused for a moment. 'Now, there are further house points hidden within the water. Your task, in teams of four – teams I have chosen, I add, with a mix of boys and girls, Slytherins and Gryffindors,' the teacher ignored the groans around him, 'will be to collect them. You have ninety minutes, after which one student from each team will be allowed ten minutes in the water. There will be three seventh-year NEWT students present to intervene should it be necessary.'

A moment later, Greg found himself in one corner of the room, with Joshua, Ciaran and a blond Gryffindor girl whom he knew by name as Ingrid Nyren.

'Does anyone want to do it?' Greg looked around the group as a nervous silence followed his question. 'I mean, I will if no one else does…'

'Thanks, Greg,' Joshua nodded. 'Usually I would, but…'

Greg managed a thin smile. 'It's okay, mate,' he acknowledged, simply. 'So, we've got an hour and a half to come up with a plan.'

'I've got some waterproofed boots,' Joshua offered, quickly, 'back in… in my…'

'Cool,' Greg smiled.

'I'll go and get them if you want.'

The Slytherin boy got to his feet. 'I'll come with you. Thanks.' Greg followed his friend out of the classroom and into the relative privacy of the corridor. 'Have you got anything else?'

Joshua shrugged. 'I've got some swimming trunks if you want those?'

Greg winced. 'I don't know,' he shook his head. 'I'd kind of like a bit more defence than that.'

'What, though?' Joshua retorted. 'You can't wear your robes, can you?'

'Guess not,' Greg admitted. 'You haven't got a wetsuit, have you?'

'A what-suit?'

Greg laughed. 'Never mind. I guess they'll have to do. What do you think there'll be in the water?'

'I have absolutely no idea,' Joshua dug into a drawer in the corner of his untidy bedroom, dragging out a baggy pair of swimshorts, before retrieving a heavy-looking pair of boots from beneath his bed. 'They're not as heavy as they look.'

'I hope not!' Greg took the boots from his friend, before turning to head back to the Defence classroom. 'Thanks.'

'What's your plan, then?' Joshua caught up to the other boy.

'See what Ciaran and Ingrid have worked out first,' Greg answered, 'and take it slow when I get in there… real slow.'

'Your ninety minutes are almost up,' Jenkins' voice echoed around the classroom. 'If you need to change clothing, please do so now,' the teacher pointed out a set of screens against one wall of the room, and Greg got to his feet to cross the room.

'I guessed it was going to be you,' Theo greeted him a moment later.

Greg smirked. 'How did you manage that?' he pulled his shirt over his head. 'I wonder…'

'At least our groups were alright,' Theo continued, 'I'd hate to have been in Zac's,' he observed, watching the brown-haired boy stand up and make his own way towards the changing area. 'Holly and Megan…'

Greg shook his head. 'Alright, Zac?'

'What do you think?' the new arrival rolled his eyes. 'I got to spend an hour and a half with the bitch queen from Hades.'

Theo snorted. 'They come up with any ideas?'

'The best they had was leaving me there to die,' he shook his head. 'Me and Aidan just ignored them, but we couldn't think of much.' Isaac took a deep breath. 'Can we stick together in there?' he asked, his voice dropping.

'Of course,' Greg answered in an instant. 'Whoever's on the sides, look out and cover,' he took a breath. Did anyone come up with any decent plans?'

'Not really,' Theo admitted, 'I just practised some simple charms – Protego, Stupefy, you know.'

'We figured there'd be stuff from last week down there,' Greg ventured. 'Things where you've got to work out your surroundings.'

Isaac nodded. 'Me and Aidan thought we should start at one side, that way we know there's nothing coming from where the wall is.'

'We _think_ there's nothing coming from where the wall is,' Greg corrected his friend. 'Well,' he forced optimism into his voice, 'let's do this. Wands out!'

With the exception of Holly and Megan, the other second-years had gathered by the makeshift shoreline by the time the three Slytherins set foot in the murky water.

'Good luck, Theo!' a girl's voice called out, and Isaac nudged his friend in the back as he heard.

'At least you've got something from today… even if we get attacked by one of the giant squid's grandchildren,' he teased.

Theo blushed. 'Shut up, Zac,' he hissed. 'Lumos!' the blond boy pointed his wand into the surface of the water, watching a beam of light dart away before fading into nothingness.

'I'll duck under,' Greg offered, taking a lungful of air before squatting down low and repeating his friend's charm. 'It's clear,' he answered, seconds later, shaking the water from his hair. 'Nothing around but one of the points balls.'

'Go get it,' Theo suggested, quickly. 'I'll guard you… Isaac, stay above the water.'

'Okay,' the other boys followed their friend's suggestion and quickly retrieved the first set of house points, a small orb that glowed a dull yellow as Greg tossed it to Josh on the shoreline. 'Now what?'

'Stick to the side,' Isaac insisted. 'Stick to the plan.'

The three boys made steady progress along the edge of the classroom, throwing a couple more of the tennis-ball sized orbs back to their fellow second-years, before a large air bubble caught the Slytherins' attention.

'What was that?' Isaac noticed it first.

'What was what?' Theo echoed.

'There,' Isaac pointed as another air bubble broke the surface.

'No idea,' Greg followed his friend's arm, watching another two bubbles break the surface. 'Stick together…' he whispered. 'What the hell…?'

A wide head lifted above the water surface, two yellowing saucer eyes, at least a foot apart, blinking at the three boys, who drew closer together as a grey-green, scaly and froglike head emerged from the water, followed by a bulbous mouth that covered the width of the creature's face.

'Wands…' Greg noticed that his arm had begun to shiver despite his best efforts to keep it still. 'On three…'

Before the twelve-year-old could add anything else, however, the creature opened its cavernous mouth, letting loose a shrill squeal that instantly forced the boys to jam their hands over their ears and reducing them to spectators as the head rose upwards, accompanied by long skeletal wings and a curving, lizard tail topped with a sharp, razor point. The creature reared up, breaking the water surface before diving down at the second-years, its mouth spreading to swallow the boys.

'Stab it…' Theo forced his wand arm up towards the creature's open mouth, and his two housemates copied wordlessly. Their wands sliced up through its throat and into the back of its neck, joined at the last instant by a purple beam that shot from Theo's wand and through the beast's skin, leaving a leathery carcass spread across the boys' heads, before the hole widened and the creature's body slipped down to the waterbed.

Isaac swore, choking as he felt the scales drop down his shoulders, before yelling out in pain as the sharp point of the tail dug into his ribs.

'Zac!' the other two boys shouted in unison, watching aghast as their housemate lose his balance with a stagger, his eyes glazing over as Greg lunged to grab his arm. 'Come on, Theo,' he urged, 'we've got to get him back!'

Theo had no hesitation in copying his friend, snatching Isaac's other arm and striking out for the edge of the pool. It took less than twenty seconds for the two boys to drag the third ashore, dropping him at the feet of his classmates, before another panicked shout distracted the two Slytherins.

'Greg!' Ciaran's voice rose sharply. 'Your legs!'

Greg looked around suddenly, yelling out in surprise as he noticed a set of spindly arms grasping his knees, and before the twelve-year-old could work out what was happening, he had been hauled to the ground.

'Greg!' Theo echoed the other boy's shouts, pulling his friend back to his feet, an unwitting rope in a lethal tug-of-war.

'Reducto!' Joshua's yell shook the classroom. 'Reducto!'

Two bursts of blue light shot from the Gryffindor's wand, striking the creatures that clung on to Greg's legs and blasting them backwards, detaching them from their would-be prey and allowing Theo the time he needed to drag his friend from the water and onto the shoreline beside Joshua.

'Thanks, mate…' Greg breathed, picking the bony arms away from his kneecaps and wincing as he felt a raw burn around the joints.

'Well, then,' Jenkins drew the students' attention back to Isaac's prone body, as the brown-haired boy squirmed and coughed on the ground in front of them, his right arm blotching as an angry rash grew along his skin. 'Anyone think they can handle this young man's problems?'

Lucas shuffled forwards. 'I can try,' he offered, kneeling down next to his housemate and resting his wand on the boy's neck. 'Anapneo,' he murmured, closing his eyes and listening as his friend's breathing grew calmer and steadier. 'That's all I know…'

'That's enough, Mr Brand,' the professor's voice rose again. 'Ten points to Slytherin. I'll take it from here.' He dug a thin vial of liquid from the pocket of his robes and, using the thin end of a pipette, sprinkled it across Isaac's swollen arm. 'You seem to attract trouble, Mr Davies,' the man remarked.

Isaac could only manage a low grunt in reply, before struggling to a sitting position. 'That's how you get experience, right…?'

Theo smiled. 'Just a whole load of bad decisions…' he repeated a phrase he'd first uttered the term before. 'That's what…'

'…your rugby coach says,' the other Slytherin boys completed their housemate's sentence.

'It does help if you survive them, nonetheless,' Jenkins observed, drily. 'Now, I wonder,' he continued, 'what have we learned this week?'

Greg shook his head, still gingerly feeling the raw skin on his knees. 'I don't even know what they were… did they do this?' he pointed to the red marks around his legs. 'Or was that…'

'It was me, wasn't it?' Joshua grimaced, and the teacher had no option but to nod slowly.

'It was, Mr Tregeagle,' the man confirmed, 'but they are nothing a short trip to Madam Pomfrey's won't fix up… and in my book, a few burns are a much better alternative to being dragged to the depths by a Grindylow. Five points to Gryffindor for your initiative,' he continued, 'but next time, you'll find it easier to break their fingers. As for Mr Davies' nemesis, that was a Llamhigyn y Dŵr,' his tongue rolled over the Welsh vowels, 'a Water Leaper. Your assignment for Wednesday is to find out a great deal more about this little-known beastie.'

'Water Leapers…' Glyn shook his head. 'I still can't believe he made you face one of them.' The Hufflepuff boy had joined his friends in the Slytherin dungeon the following evening as they struggled to catch up with two days' worth of homework on top of a long Quidditch practice. 'I wasn't even sure there were that many of them left…'

'I know what I'm starting with,' Isaac snorted. 'Water Leapers are scary little bastards that look like a cross between a bat and a frog with a lizard's tail and a stinger that stops you breathing…'

'Dare you,' Theo teased, 'go on.'

Lucas ignored his housemates' chatter. 'If they're as dangerous as that, how come we can't find anything in any books about them?'

'No,' Glyn interrupted, 'you can. You just have to look hard enough,' he planted a finger on a double page that sat on the desk in front of him, pointing out a picture of the ugly creature. 'Oh,' he added as Greg peered over his shoulder. 'It helps if you know Welsh.'

'I know what the Welsh is for "slow", if that helps…?' Greg volunteered.

'That's only because it's painted on the roads all over Harlech!' Glyn laughed. 'Anyway, it says here that Water Leapers are found in the mountains of North Wales, particularly the high lakes, or cwms, of Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons.'

'Harlech's in Snowdonia, right?' Lucas checked.

Glyn nodded. 'Yeah, but just on the edge,' he confirmed. 'Most of the mountains are further north than us.'

'Have you ever seen one?' Theo, like his housemates, was now paying total attention to Glyn's translation of the old book.

'No,' the Welsh boy shook his head. 'Dad used to tell me and Iestyn stories about all the creatures that lived in the mountains, though, and the Leaper was one of them. I remember it was one that scared Iestyn the most…' he returned to the book. 'It has the body of a giant toad, wide batlike wings and a long tail capped with a sharp stinger. It preys mainly on fish, but has also been known to feed on sheep that stray too close to its watery homes. Attacks on humans are rare but not undocumented.'

Glyn took a deep breath. 'The sting contains a poison that, whilst not fatal to adults, can cause a painful rash on contact, as well as muscle contractions that can lead to shortness of breath.'

'They got that bit right,' Isaac supplied.

'Well,' Glyn continued, 'the rest of it talks about how you should deal with them, and the counter-spells and cures you should use if you get stung.'

'Was Anapneo right?' Lucas asked.

Glyn nodded. 'Where did you learn that one?'

The redheaded boy shrugged. 'I was reading up on basic healing spells last week, after what happened with Josh and Zac,' he explained. 'Like Jenkins said, I wanted to try and learn some of the simple ones like Tergeo, for cleaning wounds, and Episkey, but the book said that the most important thing was making sure someone could breathe alright.'

'Yeah,' Theo added, 'it's the same in muggle first aid: the first thing we're meant to check is ABC… airway, breathing and circulation.'

'Can you teach us those spells, Lukie?' Greg asked. 'Jenkins is right, we need to know them.'

'I'll try,' Lucas agreed.

'Thanks, mate,' Greg smiled. 'Is there anything else in that book, Glyn?'

The Welsh boy shrugged. 'Not much,' he admitted. 'It says they have pretty thin skins, and a well-aimed Diffindo spell can cut right through them.'

'What did you cast, Theo?' Isaac asked. 'When it jumped at us?'

'I've got no idea,' the blond boy admitted. 'It was like Josh last week, accidental magic.'

'It was good accidental magic, though,' Greg reassured his friend. 'No way would I have wanted to end up inside that thing's mouth.'

'Well, that's it,' Glyn let the book slam shut. 'I guess I know what we've got to expect on Thursday,' he forced a thin smile. 'I guess I'd better get back now.'

'Fair enough,' Greg nodded. 'I'll go get Ossie,' he pushed himself to his feet, leading the Hufflepuff across the common room to the fifth-year prefect. 'Thanks for helping us out, mate,' he acknowledged the other boy. 'Maybe Slughorn really does know what he's talking about inviting you to his little club.'

Glyn snorted. 'Yeah, right,' he shook his head as Oscar Symons stood up to guide the second-year back to his own dormitory. 'See you, mate.'

Greg hooked his thumb into the stiff collar of the white shirt that Professor Slughorn had supplied him, giving him a moment's release from the black tie that stymied his breathing. He stood in one corner of the Potion Master's quarters, holding a silver platter arranged with small portions of snacks and finger foods, none of which he could identify, waiting for the professor to allow Glyn to escape from his clutches and offer him some company.

The September evening was overcast and stuffy, and Greg soon felt beads of sweat beginning to mix with the wax that his Head of House had insisted he combed into his hair. As he glanced around the room, he noticed very few children near his own age. Glyn was still cornered by the teacher, surrounded by a handful of older students, but he could not identify any other second-years. He took a step to one side, trying to peer around the gathered pupils, and blinked as he noticed a short boy sitting on a bench at the far side of the room with his head buried in his hands. 'Who's that?' he turned to the boy beside him, but his waiting colleague could only shrug. 'Some first-year,' the teenager dismissed Greg's question, before turning his back on the twelve-year-old to refill his own silver platter.

Greg sighed, stepping back to his own post and resigning himself to counting the minutes until Glyn worked free of Slughorn's attention, and trying to work out what any of the food on the tray in front of him used to be. It was nearly half an hour before the other second-year managed to join his friend.

'Having fun?' Greg couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice, and Glyn noticed.

'Hey,' he snapped, 'I didn't ask to come here, remember!' the Hufflepuff glared at the other boy. 'And did it look like I was having fun?'

Greg's head dropped. 'I guess not,' he admitted, 'but at least you haven't been standing here with a plate of crap that no one wants to eat.'

Glyn tried, and failed, to suppress a laugh. 'Go on, I'll have some. What is it?'

'Do I look like I know?' the Slytherin managed a thin smile of his own. 'They smell like some kind of fish…'

Glyn picked up a serving, holding it up to his nose and checking its aroma for himself. 'Woah,' he gagged, 'it must be some very old fish.'

'Maybe it's that Water Leaper,' Greg suggested.

The Welsh boy paused, his mouth half-open. 'Do you think so? Really?'

'How should I know?' Greg shook his head. 'Do I look like a house-elf?'

Glyn's raised his eyebrows, his smile growing wider, and the Slytherin punched him playfully in the side as he turned away.

'Piss off, Welshy,' Greg echoed his friend's laughter. 'Go on, try the Water Leaper.'

'I will if you do.'

'Fine,' Greg accepted the challenge. No backing out, you've got to swallow it. On three, two, one…'

The twelve-year-olds screwed their eyes shut, feeling the leathery texture of the fish squeeze down their throats and leaving a bitter taste as it forced its way into their stomachs.

'That's disgusting,' Greg managed, sticking his tongue out and gasping for fresh air. 'Why would anyone want to eat that…?'

Glyn shook his head. 'I'll get some water,' he offered, shuttling across the room to grab two glasses, which the boys downed without hesitation. 'Ugh.'

'What was Slughorn talking to you about, then?' Greg changed the subject of their conversation, and his friend winced at the memory.

'He kept going on about the Heir of Merlin thing,' the Hufflepuff explained, 'asking me about my grandparents and my great-grandparents, like he was trying to work out if I was really descended from Merlin.'

'You are, right?' Greg checked.

'I don't know!'

'You've got to be, haven't you?' the blond boy insisted. 'Otherwise none of that bloodline thing would have worked last summer, and the Hunt would have killed you…'

Glyn shrugged. 'I don't know,' he repeated emptily. 'I told you, I have no idea why I said it,' his voice dropped. 'I don't remember thinking it. It just happened.'

'We'll figure out why, mate,' the Slytherin insisted. 'We worked out the Wild Hunt, didn't we? We'll work out this as well.'

'I hope so,' the Welsh boy managed, 'but not now,' he shook his head, 'not after Slughorn's been going on at me about it.'

'Alright,' Greg didn't force the issue. 'Do you know why that first-year's here?'

Glyn looked around. 'Which first-year?'

'Over there, sat on his own,' Greg gestured. 'He's been there for ages.'

'Not sure,' Glyn admitted. 'I'll go ask him.'

The Hufflepuff set out across the room, and as he returned moments later Greg knew that he wouldn't have to ask the younger boy's name.

'Hey, Tom,' he recognised the first-year, realising that the younger boy's hair was, like his own, slicked back unnecessarily, pressing the brown curtains down onto the sides of his face and revealing a forehead scattered with freckles.

'Hi,' the first-year murmured.

'You alright?'

Thomas shrugged.

'How come you got invited, then?' Greg persisted.

The younger boy looked down at his polished shoes and mumbled something that neither of the second-years could hear properly.

'What?'

Thomas sighed. 'He thought I might have been related to someone he taught once,' he spoke slowly. 'Turned out I wasn't… and he kind of lost interest after that.' The eleven-year-old looked back up at the older boys, trying to force a smile but only succeeding in biting his bottom lip.

'Don't let it bother you,' Glyn let his hand rest on the first-year's shoulder for a moment. 'Anyone who's only interested in you cause of who you're related to isn't worth worrying about.'

'Thanks.' This time the younger boy's smile was genuine.

'It's okay,' Glyn nodded, sitting down on an old chair beside the platter of unidentified fish. 'It's the only reason Slughorn's bothered about me.'

Thomas bit his lip again. 'Oh,' he managed, glancing around the corner of the room, before his eyes fell on the discarded tray of canapes. 'What are they?'

Greg shook his head. 'We have no idea,' he admitted. 'They're weird. Nothing like anything we've ever tasted before.'

The first-year picked up a portion, biting down on the strange fish before grimacing as he gagged on its taste.

'Told you,' Greg smirked. ' _Nothing_ like anything…' he laughed as Thomas tried, and failed, to prevent himself from retching as several dozen eyes turned towards him.

Thomas coughed and spluttered, snatching for a handrest to support himself as he struggled to hold his balance, before finally regaining his composure and staring at Greg with a pale face that registered an obvious, embarrassed hurt.

'Tom…' the blond boy began, but the first-year didn't let him finish speaking, heading straight for the door and letting it slam behind as the other guests dissolved back into their own conversations. 'I didn't mean that,' he swallowed. 'Crap…'

'Come on,' Glyn stood up. 'We'd better go after him.'

'Yeah,' Greg nodded, distractedly, before turning to follow his friend to the door. 'I bet he's gone the long way round,' he suggested. 'He won't know the shortcut back to the dungeon.' Greg unfastened the top button of his shirt and dragged the thin black tie free from his neck. 'Tom?' he called. 'Thomas?'

'He's not going to answer,' Glyn predicted.

Greg sighed. 'I never thought he'd throw up.'

'I know…' Glyn's reply was cut off by a high-pitched scream that echoed from the hallway above. 'Bloody hell...'

'That was him, wasn't it?'

Glyn nodded.

Greg swore again. 'What are we going to do?'

The Hufflepuff stared back at him. 'Depends if you ever want him to trust you again.'

Greg winced, before setting his face into a mask of concentration. 'Let's go.' He broke into a run, hurrying up the stone stairwell ahead of him and around into the corridor above, only to come face-to-face with a pair of fifth-years as they towered over Thomas' shivering form, trapping him in an arched alcove. 'Hey!' Greg yelled without pausing to think. 'Leave him alone!'

'Or what?' the shorter of the two bullies sneered. 'What are you going to do?'

Greg stared, wordlessly, at the fifth-years, clenching his hand around his wand as the older boys glared back at him. A flash of green light shot suddenly in the twelve-year-olds' direction, only to jolt straight back as the purple pulse of a shield charm curved around the second-years. The curse deflected away from Greg and his friend, striking the taller boy above the eye.

Thomas let out another squeak of shock as an eruption of lurid, green-brown boils bubbled onto the fifth-year's face.

'What are you looking at?' the curse victim turned to face the first-year, letting loose a furious right hook that struck Thomas squarely across the nose, instantly yielding a fountain of crimson blood, before the older boys turned to run.

'Tom…' Greg sunk down beside the eleven-year-old as the first-year jerked his head away. 'It's safe now, they've gone…'

Thomas buried his face in his hands, fighting to hide his tears but only managing to smear a trail of blood across his forehead and dishevel the curtains of his hair.

'Are you going to be alright?' Greg lowered his voice. 'How's that cut?'

'Aren't you just gonna laugh at me again?' Thomas' raw voice was muffled by a barrier of his fringe and his fingers.

Greg felt his stomach tighten as he heard the younger boy's accusation. 'I won't,' he insisted. 'I promise.'

'Really?'

'Really.'

The first-year lifted his face slowly, revealing a heavy swelling across one cheek, dwarfing pale skin where his natural freckles mixed with an equally busy scattering of blood.

Greg swore under his breath.

'Is it bad?' Thomas' voice caught in his throat.

Greg hesitated for long enough for the younger boy to answer his own question.

'Please don't tell anyone,' Thomas blinked back a fresh burst of tears. 'They'll just let my parents know, and, and…' the first-year dissolved again.

'We won't tell,' Greg put an arm across the boy's shoulders, 'and I can try to heal that up for you if you want.'

Thomas looked up, timidly.

'We've been practising healing spells in Defence,' the second-year explained. 'I only know the simple ones, but it should be enough.'

'Alright,' Thomas nodded.

Greg swallowed, lifting his wand to sit on the bridge of the eleven-year-old's nose. 'Tergeo.' He watched as the rash of blood first thinned and then faded completely. 'Episkey…'

Thomas winced, forcing a sharp intake of breath into his lungs and blinking twice, then three times as he steeled himself to avoid any further tears. 'Thanks,' he managed a weak smile.

'That's okay,' Greg acknowledged. 'Slytherins Stick Together.'


	9. First Steps

'Well done, Zac,' Lucas clapped his hands in mock applause. 'You got through a whole Defence lesson without nearly getting yourself killed.'

Theo snorted. 'Only cause we didn't actually fight anything this time…'

Lucas grinned. 'Yeah,' he admitted, 'but he could still have got a paper cut, or stabbed himself in the eye with the end of his quill, or…'

'Got kicked in the balls by one of his mates?' Isaac suggested, shaking his head as he shoved his friend aside. 'Just cause you never volunteer for stuff…'

'That's cause I value my arms and legs,' Lucas shimmied away from a playful kick.

Greg tried to hide a smile as he followed a few metres behind his housemates, falling in step with Joshua. 'Have you talked to any of your first-years much?' he asked.

The Gryffindor shook his head. 'Not really,' he admitted. 'Why?'

Greg sighed, before retelling the events of Friday evening and Thomas Fitch's skirmish with the older boys. 'We hardly saw any of them over the weekend, either,' he added, 'and they don't talk to us much even when we do.'

'Do you know who either of the boys were?' Joshua picked out a detail of his friend's story. 'You said they were fifth-years, right?'

'I think so,' Greg confirmed, 'but I don't know who they were. They didn't have any House robes on or anything.'

Joshua shook his head. 'It's not fair,' he insisted. 'It was just because he was Slytherin, wasn't it?'

Greg didn't answer.

'It was, Greg, I know it,' Joshua sighed. 'Just like… just like you and me…'

The blond boy looked back at his friend and nodded once, slowly. 'It's got to be. Didn't they see what happened last summer?' Greg's voice rose. 'Don't they know what would have happened if all four Houses weren't there?'

Joshua shrugged. 'I don't know…' he managed. 'Some guys in Gryffindor were pretty pissed off about the whole thing.'

'Really?' Greg blinked.

'Yeah,' Joshua nodded. 'You know how it's always been between Gryffindor and Slytherin.'

Greg forced an empty smile. 'Best of enemies,' he sighed, 'but this was meant to change! A Slytherin boy saved your life!'

'Hardly anyone knows that, though.'

'Tom's parents were both in Slytherin,' Greg continued. 'A long time ago. They were both working in the Ministry when it fell. They went along with it all. Saved their own skins. How's someone who lost their family in the war ever going to be able to be friends with him?' The second-year's voice turned despondent. 'How's he ever going to get out of that shadow?'

Joshua didn't reply for several moments as the boys followed the narrow corridor that led away from the Defence classroom and around to the Greenhouses. 'There's got to be some way, hasn't there?' he asked. ''Like you said last year when we were trying to beat the Hunt… you'll never know if you don't try.'

'Thanks, Josh,' Greg acknowledged, before changing the subject. 'Have you got any lessons next period?'

Joshua nodded again. 'Yeah, Herbology.'

'Oh,' Greg pushed his way through the thin wooden door at the end of the corridor. 'We've got a free period. I guess I should make a start on that essay Jenkins just set. See you later, I guess,' he made to turn away before Joshua flung an arm across his friend's path.

'Shh!' A bolt of urgency flashed into Joshua's voice, and the Gryffindor wasted no time in holding Greg back against the castle wall. 'Did you hear that?'

'Hear what?'

Joshua held a finger over his lips. 'Just listen.'

'Come on, little squib,' a distant voice teased, growing nearer as it persisted. 'Don't you want to play? Don't you know _how_?'

The second-years saw a flash of spellwork from the direction of the taunts, quickly followed by a frightened shout. 'Get down,' Greg whispered. 'Remember what Jenkins said, get somewhere we can see them, but they can't see us!' He scampered quickly across a grassy track to the shelter of a thick bush. 'Down there…'

The Slytherin peered through a tangle of branches, pointing out a frail, blond figure that shivered against a heavy, moss-covered boulder at the side of the trail.

'That's what Slytherin gets now, isn't it?' the voice continued, closing in on its frightened victim. 'No one decent wants to go there so they just get the squibs.'

'It'll be called squib-erin soon,' a second voice taunted, 'the House full of kids nobody wants.'

'They're our first-years,' Joshua murmured. 'I'm glad I've never talked to them.'

'Your dad never wanted you, did he?' The taller of the two boys turned his attention to Morgan, and Greg's mouth dropped open as he watched. 'Cause if he did, you'd know who he was, and you might even know something about magic!'

'Shut up,' Morgan pleaded. 'I… I can't…'

'You can't do magic, I know,' the second Gryffindor sneered. 'Are you _all_ squibs in Slytherin now?'

Joshua exhaled sharply. 'We've got to do something, Greg.'

The other second-year grimaced. 'Not yet,' he whispered. 'That would be like a teacher stopping it. They'd only start again when we were gone.'

'They're not going to stop, though, are they?' Joshua protested, watching as one of the Gryffindors aimed a harmless bolt of light at the rock behind the blond first-year. 'It's not like your guys can defend themselves!'

'Just wait…' Greg insisted, and though Joshua shook his head, he did as his friend suggested whilst the first-years turned their attention onto a third boy.

'I guess it's better to have no parents than have parents like yours, right, Fitch?'

'Shut up, Lawton!' Thomas Fitch snapped back.

'You know I'm right!' the smaller boy continued. 'What did your parents do in the War?' Oh yeah, they worked for the Ministry!'

'I said shut up!' Thomas tried to hold his stare.

Lawton strode slowly towards the Slytherin. 'You know what your parents would have done with a kid like that?' he pointed at Morgan, before slowly drawing his finger across his own throat.

Thomas' pale face reddened, and Morgan's expression turned from one of fear to one of revulsion.

'Do you think I don't know that?' Thomas didn't even try to stop himself from shouting, nor a flood of tears from rimming his eyes. 'Do you think I don't remember that, every day? When we went to the War Memorial in History, what do you think I thought about?'

'Killing mudbloods?'

'Piss off!' Thomas' patience expired, and he swore aloud, lashing out wildly at the Gryffindor, who ducked clumsily away from his punch.

Greg didn't wait any longer. He burst out from his hiding place, dragging the first-year away from the confrontation. 'Leave it, Tom…' he counselled, watching as the shorter of the two Gryffindors regained his composure.

'Get lost, Lawton,' Joshua had followed Greg's footsteps, 'and you, Vittles,' he turned his attention to the burlier first-year.

'Just going,' Vittles smirked. 'I need to send an owl to my _parents_ ,' he paused on the word, smirking before turning his back to leave.

Greg took two short steps across to stand beside Joshua, letting a hand rest on his friend's shoulder and feeling the Gryffindor's body tense up for a long moment.

'Thanks,' Joshua murmured, taking a deep breath before the crack of branches underfoot drew his attention sharply right. 'What are you looking at?' he snapped, glowering at another young Gryffindor as he emerged into the clearing.

'N… nothing…' the new arrival stammered.

Joshua rolled his eyes. 'Yeah, right,' he smirked. 'Not another part of Vittles and Lawton's dirty little plan?' The second-year pulled his wand, pointing it at the younger boy's throat. 'Sure?'

'Josh!' Morgan found his voice. 'Stop!'

The Gryffindor looked around, keeping the tip of his wand on the new arrival's neck. 'You're sure?'

Morgan nodded, before finding himself short of words once again.

'Look at him, Josh,' Greg counselled. 'You're scaring the crap out of him…'

Joshua took a deep breath, noticing the first-year Gryffindor shiver as the wand dug into his skin. 'Alright.'

'Sorry, mate,' Greg held his hands up, proving he was unarmed, 'but our friends just got attacked by two Gryffindors, and…'

'I saw what happened,' the first-year mumbled. 'I know.'

Joshua slid his wand back into his pocket. 'I'm as bad as them,' he sighed. 'Have they been like this all term?'

'Yeah,' the first-year confirmed, and the older boys looked around to see the other eleven-year-olds nod their agreement.

Greg swore.

'Um,' the Gryffindor boy swallowed, garnering the courage to ask his next question. 'What's a mudblood?'

Greg whistled. 'You're muggle-born, right?'

The first-year nodded.

'It's an insulting way of saying that,' Greg breathed. 'It means dirty blood, like we're not real wizards because we don't have magical parents.'

'Oh,' the Gryffindor's head dropped. 'That's not true, is it?'

Greg shook his head. 'If it was, then I wouldn't ever get any good grades.'

The eleven-year-old managed a weak smile. 'I guess,' he blinked, his eyes noticing the Slytherin colours on Greg's robes for the first time. 'But… but…'

Joshua noticed the younger boy's stare, and reached out to brush a fingertip over the green crest. 'Yeah, he's in Slytherin.'

'No one's helped you out much, have they?' Greg asked rhetorically as he glanced around the clearing, and realised that he could easily direct the accusation in his question at himself. 'Me included,' he shook his head. 'Come on, guys, back to the dungeon. We owe you some answers.'

'Thanks for sticking up for me,' the Gryffindor boy fell into step alongside Morgan as the four first-years followed Greg back to the Slytherin quarters.

Morgan forced a smile. 'I couldn't just stand there and say nothing…'

'Nobody else did.' The Gryffindor flattened the fringe of his short, dark blond hair. 'Sorry,' he muttered. 'I can't remember your name.'

'It's Morgan,' the Slytherin answered.

'I'm Ty. Well, really I'm called Tyler, but everyone at home called me Ty…'

'Cool name,' Morgan acknowledged, and Tyler managed his first genuine smile of the morning as the little group drew to a halt beside the dungeon door.

'Aconite,' Greg spoke into the black marble wall, and the blocks drew back to reveal the candlelight of the Slytherin common room and his waiting friends.

'Hey, mate,' Theo was the first to greet him. 'Where've you been?'

'I just went up to Herbology with Josh,' his friend answered, 'and had a fight to break up.'

Theo blinked. 'What?' he echoed.

Greg sighed. 'Gryffindor's first-years,' he expanded. 'If you thought they were bad last year, that was nothing.' He repeated the story of how he and Joshua had stumbled upon the confrontation, before stepping in after Thomas' patience snapped.

'Good work, Tom,' Theo grinned.

The first-year blushed. 'He deserved it.'

'Who's that, then?' Isaac had noticed Tyler's quiet presence.

'He's not like them,' Morgan spoke up in Tyler's defence. 'He never joined in when they were bullying us.'

Isaac shrugged. 'Did he do anything about it?'

Tyler stared at his own feet.

'How could he?' Morgan countered. 'He's a muggle-born… like me.'

'So?'

'They've been here one week, Zac!' Lucas interrupted. 'What do you expect?'

'Yeah,' Theo added. 'All I could do in my first week was stick my wand up someone's nose.'

Isaac was too stubborn to let his argument go. 'What about those other kids, then? Aren't they first –years too?'

'They've got brothers in the fifth year.' Tyler answered without looking up. 'That's how they know stuff.'

'It's okay, mate,' Greg reassured him. 'You'll learn. We did.'

'What if I can't?'

'Hey, _I_ managed to pass alright…' Theo laughed, 'and I couldn't transfigure anything till about February.'

Tyler managed to make eye contact with the older Slytherin. 'Really?'

'Really,' Theo replied.

'Really,' Greg echoed. 'It was dangerous to be anywhere near him when he was trying it…'

'Piss off!' Theo grinned, turning to shove his friend in the shoulder as Greg tried, and failed, to stifle his own amusement. 'At least I wasn't scared of that plant in Greenhouse Three!'

'It tried to bite me!' Greg defended himself, but it was too late to stop the other children from joining in with Theo's laughter, and as Greg saw a weak smile stretch across Tyler's face, he knew he didn't mind. 'Whatever,' he stuck his tongue out, letting the laughter wash over him as the thump of footsteps carried from the dormitory staircase.

Oscar glanced around the common room, before his eyes settled on Tyler. 'Are we adopting more Gryffindors?'

Tyler blushed.

'It's a long story, Ossie,' Greg spoke up, before risking a question. 'Hey,' he recalled something the first-year had mentioned. 'You know the Gryffindors in your year? Do you know if any of them have brothers in the first year?'

Oscar paused for a moment. 'Maybe,' the prefect ventured, 'I think Vittles and Lawton might…' he tailed off, noticing one of his own House flinch as he mentioned their names. 'Leif?'

The Icelandic boy sunk back into his seat as the fifth-year called his name.

'Leif?' Oscar repeated, taking a couple of steps toward the first-year. 'What happened?'

The eleven-year-old didn't answer, but after a moment of quiet Thomas spoke up on his behalf. 'They're the ones,' he ventured. 'Vittles and Lawton. They've been calling him and Morgan squibs all term, just because they couldn't do Wingardium Leviosa.'

Oscar's expression hardened. 'Sounds like their brothers, alright,' he remarked, drily. 'You've got to be pretty special to call a muggle-born a squib.'

Morgan's eyes narrowed.

'Squibs have got magical parents,' Theo supplied, 'but can't do magic themselves. It's the exact opposite of you… of us.'

Oscar paced slowly across the room, squatting down in front of Leif and Morgan, who were sharing one of the room's small sofas. 'I know it's really easy to say this, guys, but people like that aren't worth bothering with. They're just trying to get a reaction out of you. Don't let them win.'

Leif shifted in his seat, slowly turning to face the prefect. 'How?' he pleaded.

'How did you get out of today?'

'Tom…' Leif whispered.

Oscar smiled. 'There you go,' he nodded. 'You've got to stick together. That's what Slytherins do.'

Morgan shuffled closer to his housemate. 'We didn't know what to do,' he murmured. 'Greg,' his voice fell further, 'you helped me at the start, you helped me loads, but since the first day… you haven't.'

Greg felt the other eyes in the room turning towards him. 'I didn't…' he swallowed, before forcing himself to make eye contact with the first-year. 'I know,' he sighed. 'I didn't mean to, but…' he shook his head. 'I'm not going to make up any crappy excuses, mate. You're right. We just guessed you were alright because you never said anything. We should have asked… we should never have let it get so far. Sorry,'

'It's okay,' Morgan accepted. 'We should have said something.'

'It doesn't matter,' Isaac interrupted. 'It's still only the second week. Merlin, we made bigger screw-ups last year, and everything went alright, didn't it?'

Theo exhaled. 'Depends if you count staring the Wild Hunt in the face as alright…'

Isaac stared at his friend. 'You know what I mean.'

'Yeah,' Greg didn't let the argument brew, 'we do, and we'll be alright this year too. House Meeting tonight?' he suggested.

Oscar raised an eyebrow. 'Isn't it the prefect's job to call a House Meeting?'

Greg shrugged, and the older boy laughed.

'8.00, common room,' Oscar decided. 'Friends of Slytherin welcome too.' The prefect clapped his hands. 'I'm pretty sure it's also my job to make sure you firsties aren't late for your lessons, so let's move out!'

'Have you got any lessons now?' Greg turned to Tyler as the Slytherin first-years followed their prefect from the dungeons, and the young Gryffindor shook his head. 'Do you want to stay here till lunch?'

Tyler nodded. 'Yes, please.'

'Sure,' Greg crossed the room to sit down beside the first-year. 'How did you find out about magic?'

'I got a letter,' Tyler answered, simply. 'I didn't really believe it, though.'

'Me neither,' the older boy admitted. 'I was lucky that Matt, the other fifth-year, lives in my village, too, and he explained it all to me.'

Tyler sighed. 'I wish someone could have explained it all to me as well.'

'I'm guessing Lawton and Vittles haven't been much use?'

The Gryffindor shook his head. 'All they go on about is how Slytherin shouldn't even be allowed any more, because of the Death Eaters, or something like that…'

'Idiots,' Greg dismissed the claim. 'The Death Eaters weren't all Slytherins… and Slytherins weren't all Death Eaters!

'I know,' Tyler whispered.

'It's okay,' the older boy assured him, before deciding to change the subject. 'Where are you from, mate?'

'Cornwall.'

'Cool,' Greg kept him talking. 'Me and Matt are from Chudleigh in Devon, and Josh, the second-year Gryffindor who was with me, he's Cornish too.'

Tyler brightened. 'I'm from Roche, near St Austell.'

Lucas looked up. 'Roche?' he repeated, rhyming the village name with "coach". 'As in Roche Rock?'

'Yeah…' Tyler acknowledged. 'How do you know it?'

Lucas glanced around his friends, wondering if any of the other boys had made the same connections he had done. 'Roche Rock,' he repeated, 'is one of the places where Jan Tregeagle fled on the run from the Wild Hunt.'

'Tregeagle?' Tyler blinked. 'The Wild Hunt? I heard those stories in Primary School, but they're just stories, right? Right?'

'Wrong,' Lucas shook his head. 'They're real. Very, very real…'

'Yeah,' Theo echoed. 'They're real, alright… and they came back to the school last year,' he explained. 'You know Josh, in the second year? His last name's Tregeagle, and the Hunt are after him as well now.'

Tyler's mouth dropped open. 'Really?' he asked, disbelieving, as his face turned place. He swore, unthinkingly, before reddening as he covered his mouth. 'How did you find out?'

Theo managed a hollow laugh. 'It's pretty hard to miss it when it's standing five yards away, and it's trying to kill you.'

The first-year stared back, mutely.

'TMI, I reckon, Theo,' Greg broke the silence.

The blond boy shrugged. 'He asked.'

Greg could see the first-year's face pale. 'Come on, mate,' he assured the younger boy. 'Don't worry about that right now. Yeah, there's some stuff that's pretty rubbish about the magical world, but there's lots more that's amazing.'

'Like what?' Tyler shivered.

'Well, Quidditch for starters!'

Tyler crossed his arms, defensively. 'Like I'll ever be any good at that,' he grunted. 'I only started trying to learn to fly last week, and I can hardly get my broom off the ground! Vittles and Lawton have been flying since they were five!'

Theo smiled. 'You don't know what happened in the Quidditch Cup last year, do you?'

'Why should I?'

The Slytherin laughed. 'Well…' Slowly, he began to expand on his story. 'There was one team that was full of first-years, and two of them were muggle-borns who'd never flown a broom before, and nobody thought they had a chance…' he paused, dramatically.

Tyler blinked. 'What happened?'

'Have a look for yourself,' Greg extended an arm, pointing out a series of moving photographs that were clustered together on one of the dungeon walls.

The first-year pushed himself to his feet, edging across the marble tiles of the common room floor and towards the display. 'It was you?' Tyler's voice stuttered between question and disbelief. 'And you won?'

'Looks like it, doesn't it?' Greg followed the younger boy across the room as Tyler stared, open-mouthed, up at the pictures. 'Sure, we got a bit lucky, but we won.'

'Wow…'

'We couldn't have done it without our friends, though, from all the Houses, and that's another thing that's amazing about Hogwarts, spending so much time with your friends.'

The eleven-year-old's voice dropped again. 'That's fine for you,' he murmured, 'but I haven't got any friends here.'

'That's not true.'

'It is.'

'No it isn't,' Greg insisted. 'If you didn't have any friends then no one would have asked you to come and play Quidditch with them before lunch.'

'They haven't,' Tyler's voice was still deadpan, but Greg couldn't keep half a laugh out of his next sentence.

'Yes, they have.' A grin spread across the twelve-year-old's face as he watched the younger boy work out what he meant. 'Anyone else coming?'

Several hours later, Tyler was back in the Slytherin common room, sandwiched between Morgan and Greg on one of the narrow black leather couches that hemmed the room, as Oscar stood to attention in front of the largest fireplace. 'Alright, guys,' he raised his voice, drawing the children's attention towards him, 'House Meeting starts now.' Oscar glanced around the room, skim-counting those present. 'I think Slytherin are still just about the majority…'

There were ten Slytherin boys in the room – Matt and Oscar in the fifth year, Seb Burns, the only fourth-year, all four second-years, and the three younger boys who'd been caught up in the skirmish that morning. The other first-years, Anton Garnett and the two girls, were absent, but alongside Tyler were Ciaran Abercrombie, Aidan Mills and Joshua Tregeagle from Gryffindor, and the Hufflepuff trio of Jai Clarke, Glyndwr Jones and Cameron Ollerton.

'I'll skip the formalities,' Oscar continued. 'First-years,' he turned to face Leif, Morgan and Thomas in turn, 'we've done a pretty crappy job of looking after you guys, and as prefect I've got to take the blame for that.'

'But…' Greg opened his mouth to argue, only for Oscar to silence him with a sharp retort.

'But nothing, Greg,' the fifth-year raised a hand. 'I know you feel crap about it too, but it's not your _job_ to look after the first-years. It's mine, and I haven't done it properly.' He paused, half-expecting Greg to protest again, but the second-year remained silent. 'Tonight, we sort that out,' Oscar took a deep breath. 'Morgan,' he looked back to the first-year, 'are you ready? Tell it like it is.'

The eleven-year-old nodded. 'Yes,' he mumbled, before pushing himself slowly to his feet and making his way to the front of the room as the prefect sat. 'I guess we should have told you this before tonight,' his voice barely rose as the others in the room strained to hear him. 'Ever since the first day of term, it feels like all the Gryffindors have been trying to make our lives miserable…' Morgan grabbed the edge of the polished lectern that sat beside him, and Oscar stood to hold the tip of his wand gently against the younger boy's throat.

'Sonorus minima,' the prefect whispered, magnifying Morgan's voice so that the gathered children had a chance to hear him clearly.

'Thanks,' the first-year acknowledged. 'All the Gryffindors… not you, Ty,' he noticed a nervous face as Greg moved to reassure the other first-year. 'They've been ganging up on us all around the school, calling us names, stopping us from getting to lessons on time… all because they know we can't fight back. Me and Leif are muggle-borns,' he continued, 'and they've been learning magic from their brothers for years.' He felt his breathing start to hurry. 'We're just easy targets!'

'Thanks, Morgan,' Oscar removed the wand from the other boy's neck. 'So, that's the problem. What are we going to do about it?'

'What about walking with them between lessons?' Glyn suggested. 'Someone's bound to be free most of the time, right?'

Oscar looked back over to Morgan, who shrugged. 'It might work, I guess,' the prefect acknowledged, 'but we can't do that all year.'

'I didn't mean all year,' the Hufflepuff clarified. 'I just meant whilst they learned to defend themselves.'

'Can't they defend themselves already?' Isaac asked. 'I mean, they should have learned some spells by now, right?'

Leif shook his head.

'It must be pretty hard to learn anything when you're scared you're going to get ganged up on again at the end of the lesson,' Lucas came to the first-year's defence, but Isaac only rolled his eyes.

'What about Fitch?' Isaac countered. 'He's not muggle-born, he should be able to stand up for himself, shouldn't he?'

Thomas Fitch was sitting alone on a single, flat stool at one edge of the meeting, and he swallowed, uncomfortably, as the whole room turned to look at him. 'I can't…' he stared at the floor.

'What?' Isaac wasn't dissuaded.

'I can't!' Thomas repeated. 'I can't afford to get into trouble! My parents didn't even want me to come here after what happened with the Wild Hunt last summer…'

Isaac snorted. 'Some friend you are.'

Thomas reddened. 'Shut up! You don't get it!'

'Don't I?' the second-year snapped back. 'My sister got attacked by the Hunt last year and spent nearly a month in the Hospital Wing. I'm still back, and so is she!'

'Shut up!' Thomas stood, turning his attention to Greg. 'I thought you said Slytherins Stick Together?'

'Coming from you?' Isaac wouldn't let it drop. 'You, who's too scared, too much of a bloody coward, to stand up for Leif and Morgan? We'd stick together if you deserved our help.'

Thomas couldn't keep his composure any longer, turning on his heel and heading for the spiral staircase that led down to the dormitories without another word.

'Bloody hell, Zac,' Greg filled the silence that followed the sound of the first-years' door slamming. 'You've really got a way with people, haven't you?'

Isaac shrugged. 'Well, it's true, isn't it?'

'Doesn't make it right.'

'Whatever. It's true, and you know it.'

'Alright,' Oscar interrupted, 'that's enough, guys. We'll try and keep an eye on the first-years between lessons, but we need to try and help them defend themselves as soon as possible.'

'What about your study lessons?' Theo asked.

Leif sighed.

'What?' the second-year asked again. 'Don't you get to practise then?'

'I try, but I always get it wrong, and nobody helps…' the younger boy's voice tailed away.

'Why don't you practise back here, then?' Matthew suggested. 'In here, or if you want somewhere private then the sixth-year dorm's always empty. I bet someone here would help if you wanted… I don't think anyone can take their first steps on their own.'

'Really?' Leif blinked.

'Yeah,' Matthew insisted, 'I'll even start tonight, if you want. Who else is in?'

With the exception of Isaac, all the older Slytherins raised their hands, almost instantly.

'I'd be rubbish,' the brown-haired boy justified his refusal. 'You said it yourself, Greg.'

The blond boy couldn't stop himself from smiling. 'Yeah,' he grinned, 'you're probably right.'

'I miss study lessons a bit,' Theo reflected, lowering his arm.

Greg blinked. 'What, you?'

Theo stuck his tongue out. 'Piss off, Greg,' he shook his head. 'It was good to have somewhere to go and work every week. It's hard to make yourself work in a free period.'

'Why don't we have our own study lessons, then?' Joshua suggested. 'I'm sure one of the teachers could find us a room if we explained what we wanted to do. Anyone could come, and we'd all help each other out.'

'Great idea,' Glyn acknowledged.

'Yeah,' Cameron echoed. 'Awesome!'

Oscar smiled. 'Well,' he summarised, 'it sounds like that takes care of that, then. Meeting closed!'


	10. Life Stories

Morgan pulled down on the cord beside his pillow, drawing back the green hangings that circled his bed and allowing the reflected moonlight to filter in from the surface of the Black Lake. The eleven-year-old reached out, grabbing the leather band of a watch from his bedside table, before holding it close to his face as he strained to read off its hands in the half-light. It wasn't even two o'clock, and he didn't feel like he had a chance of getting back to sleep.

He took a deep breath, in then out, and settled to listen to the night-time noises of the boys' dormitory: the lake against the window, and the slow tick of the grandfather clock in the corner. One sound was unfamiliar, however, and in a short moment Morgan had realised that it was a muffled sob that was coming from Thomas Fitch's bunk.

'Tom?' Morgan got to his feet, flinching as he felt the cold marble against his skin. 'Thomas, are you alright?' Morgan hadn't seen the other boy since the House Meeting, and had assumed he had simply gone to bed after his argument with Isaac. 'Tom?'

'Go away.'

Morgan swallowed. 'No,' he answered, flatly. 'You didn't leave me this morning, and I'm not leaving you now.'

Thomas didn't reply.

'Slytherins Stick Together is true,' Morgan insisted. 'They're all going to help us. Now, come on, open your curtains!

'No!'

'Fine!' Morgan grabbed the middle of the other boy's hangings, yanking them apart, only to gasp at the sight he revealed, and instantly understand why Thomas hadn't wanted to show himself.

On the boy's left arm, between his elbow and his shoulder, a crude ink drawing of a skull had been crossed out, and the words "bloody coward" had been scrawled in untidy capitals along his forearm.

Morgan exhaled, sharply.

'What?' Thomas snapped, pushing himself up against his headboard and staring back through a film of tears. 'You know it's true, don't you!'

Morgan gazed back at the other first-year, his mouth wide open, before shaking himself back into the early morning. Sitting down on his housemate's bed, he reached for the quill and ink that sat, abandoned, at Thomas' bedside. 'If you're a bloody coward,' he spoke quietly, setting the tip of the quill against his bare forearm, 'then I'm one too.'

Now it was Thomas' turn to gape. 'Morgan…'

'You tried to smack Lawton today,' the muggle-born recalled. 'That's way more than me or Leif ever dared, so if you're a coward, then so am I.'

Thomas brushed the back of his hand across his face, drying the rims of his eyes for a second or two. 'I… I… Stop!' he pleaded. 'Please, Morgan!'

Morgan lifted the pen from his arm, halfway through the second word. 'This just looks stupid now,' he observed, and Thomas couldn't help a half-smile. 'I'm finishing it,' he sketched the last three letters onto his skin. 'There.'

Thomas looked away again.

'I _know_ you're not a coward, Tom,' the muggle-born boy insisted.

'Why am I in Slytherin, then?' Thomas didn't bother looking up. 'It's the cowards' House, isn't it?'

Morgan swallowed. 'Who said that?'

' _Everyone_ knows that!' Thomas snapped back. 'What House do you think my parents were in? Do you think they'd have gone along with the Ministry if they were in any other House?'

'They didn't really agree with it all, did they?' Morgan asked, quietly, giving the other boy a chance to answer that he didn't take. 'Maybe they were just trying to keep you safe?'

Thomas snorted. 'Keep me safe, so that people could just remind me of it every day when I grew up?'

'Vittles and Lawton?'

Thomas' head dropped again.

'What about your friends?' Morgan persisted. 'At your primary school?'

Thomas pulled his knees up, holding them close to his chest. 'Just leave me alone,' he pleaded. 'It's not worth it. It doesn't matter…' he choked, 'my parents will take me out of Hogwarts the moment I get into any trouble. They never wanted me to come here in the first place...'

'So why did you come at all?' Morgan wasn't prepared to let the other boy dodge the question. 'Tom? Tom? Tom?'

'Just piss off!' Thomas lost the little composure he had left, slurring his answer through a flood of tears. 'It doesn't matter! I'll be gone soon, so just go, and don't waste your time talking to me! Forget I ever existed! Maybe it would have been better if I never existed!'

'No,' Morgan thought back to his first encounter with magic, on the morning of the rugby course back in London, and the way Greg and his friends had helped him. 'I don't think I'm wasting my time.'

Thomas' voice quietened. 'You are.'

'I'm not.'

'Are.'

'Am not.'

'I know you're lying.' Thomas closed his eyes.

Morgan sighed. 'I'm not lying, Tom.'

'You've got to be,' the smaller boy slumped down onto his sheets. 'No one ever really wants to be friends with me.'

Morgan's mouth dropped open in mute shock.

'See,' Thomas filled the silence. 'I knew you were lying. Why would you want to be friends with me, anyway?'

Morgan inhaled a lungful of air, feeling his heart starting to hammer against his chest as he breathed in. 'Can't you think of a reason?'

Thomas blinked once, then twice, before shaking his head, sadly.

'What about this morning?' Morgan pressed. 'When you stood up to Vittles and Lawton?'

'I didn't do that for you,' Thomas admitted. 'If he hadn't have started on me, I'd have probably just walked right past,' he swallowed. 'See,' the eleven-year-old insisted, 'I told you you wouldn't want to be my friend.'

Morgan's voice dropped. 'That's not the only reason,' he murmured, 'but it almost seems like _you're_ the one who doesn't want any friends.'

'I do!' Thomas' head snapped upwards.

'So why does it feel like you keep on trying to put me off?'

Thomas shook his head again.

'Come on,' Morgan offered, 'let's go and wash this crap off our arms, and go up to the common room for a bit. It's not like I could sleep, anyway…'

'Um, Morgan?' the shorter of the two boys pushed open the door of the dormitory's bathroom a few minutes later. 'I washed it off my arm, but…' Thomas held his arm out, showing the red marks left by the quill point that still clearly took the form of letters on his skin. 'I don't want anyone to see, not _anyone_ …'

'Hang on,' Morgan skipped back to his own bed, rummaging inside a trunk underneath before holding up a thin, red, long-sleeved t-shirt. 'Have this,' the muggle-born offered. 'It's my base layer for rugby,' he pointed to a white dragon on the chest, 'that's my club, London Welsh,' he added, explaining the capital letters on the jersey's sleeves.

'Thank you,' Thomas managed a weak smile.

Morgan nodded, tossing the shirt to his housemate before digging another top from his case and slipping it over his shoulders. 'That's okay. Come on,' he led the other boy up the spiral stairs to the deserted common room, seeking out a pair of neighbouring sofas.

'How come you came to Hogwarts, then?' Morgan changed the subject back again as the two boys made themselves comfortable. 'You said your parents didn't want you to go.'

'They didn't,' Thomas sighed. 'I still don't think they want me to be here.'

'Why not?'

The brown-haired boy fidgeted on his seat. 'I…' he looked away, playing with the seams on the end of his sleeves.

'Tom?'

'What?'

'Are you going to tell me, or not?'

Thomas took a long breath, staring down at his ankles. 'Why do you want to know?'

Morgan blinked. 'Do you want to stay here?'

'Yes!' Thomas' voice jolted upwards.

'Then I want to help.'

Thomas managed a weak smile. 'Really?'

Morgan nodded.

'Well,' Thomas breathed in again, steadying himself against the black arm of the sofa. 'It sort of goes back to primary school. You guessed right… Vittles and Lawton were in my class.'

'Didn't the teachers do anything about it?'

'What, and take sides with Slytherin? No one was ever going to be on my side,' Thomas felt his eyes prickle as he spoke. 'It got so bad my parents took me out of school, and just sent me to a normal muggle school instead. They pretty much decided it was better to totally hide from the magical world than to live with the things that they did in the war,' Thomas kept talking, even as his sentences began to run into each other. 'I read about Hogwarts, though, and I still wanted to go. I thought it might be different. I knew about the Houses, and I knew that Vittles and Lawton probably wouldn't be in the same House as me, so I thought they might leave me alone, and maybe not even recognise me if I grew my hair, but they did, and now they just say I look like a girl instead…' he tailed off.

Morgan shook his head. 'I think it looks cool,' he offered.

Thomas snorted, knocking his fringe away from his eyes. 'Yeah, right.'

'I do!' Morgan snapped.

'You're just saying that,' Thomas protested.

Morgan rolled his eyes. 'Oh, come on, Tom,' he complained, 'not this again.'

'Not what again?'

'You know what,' Morgan insisted, 'when you're trying to put me off.'

'I'm not…' Thomas' eyes began to water. 'I don't know what you mean…' he stared back at the other boy.

'Sure,' Morgan smirked, sarcastically. 'Sure you don't, mate…'

'I don't!' the eleven-year-old insisted. 'I mean it, Morgan, why would I want to put you off?'

Morgan hesitated. 'What?'

'Why would I want to put you off?' he whispered, his eyes raw. 'You're the first person who's tried to be friends with me for ages…'

The muggle-born boy blinked. 'So…' he murmured. 'How come you never believe me when I say anything good about you?'

Thomas shrugged. 'I… I guess I'm just so used to hearing people saying crap about me… ' he tried to force a smile. 'I'm not trying to put you off. I promise.'

Morgan stood up, pacing the short distance across the common room to sit down next to the other boy. 'Bloody hell…' he murmured, 'and I thought I had it bad sometimes.'

'What happened to you?' Thomas jumped at a chance to change the subject.

'Oh, not much,' Morgan dismissed the concern. 'I just never knew my Dad,' he explained. 'Which was hard sometimes, especially at rugby, but it wasn't anything like… you know…'

'Like me,' Thomas summarised, succinctly.

Morgan couldn't argue. 'Yeah,' he confirmed. 'I really do think your hair looks cool.'

Thomas managed a thin smile. 'Thanks,' the eleven-year-old yawned.

'Come on, mate,' the taller boy offered, 'let's go back to the dorms.'

'Yeah,' Thomas nodded, slowly edging to his feet and leading his housemate back to the first-years' room. 'Here,' he stretched Morgan's red base layer up and over his head, offering it back to its owner.'

Morgan shook his head. 'You keep it,' he nodded towards the other boy's left arm. 'You know,' he added, 'just in case.'

Thomas smiled. 'Thanks,' he repeated. 'See you in the morning.'

'See you.'

'Hey, Fitch!' a familiar voice echoed across the school grounds the following morning as the first-year Slytherins' flying lesson drew to a close. 'Curse any mudbloods this morning?'

Thomas shut his eyes for a moment. 'Guess who?' he muttered, turning to Morgan.

'Weren't the older ones meant to be coming between lessons?' Leif spoke up on Morgan's other side.

'They can't do that every time,' the taller boy reasoned. 'Sometimes they'll all be in double lessons…'

'Fitch!' the voice boomed again. 'How come they're hanging around you, do your parents know? Have you confunded them?' the two Gryffindor first-years who had taunted them the previous morning stood, in wait, by the castle steps.

Leif shivered, drawing back behind the other two Slytherins. 'Is there another way to History?'

Thomas shook his head. 'I don't think so,' he answered.

'Come on,' Morgan urged the other boys, 'why should we let them push us around any longer?'

Leif looked up, his face white. 'B… But…' he stammered. 'They can do magic…'

'Yeah,' Morgan conceded, catching sight of the red sleeves of the base layer beneath Thomas' shirt, 'but they don't play rugby.'

'What the hell are you wearing?' One of the boys stepped forward, blocking the Slytherins' path. 'Covering up your Dark Mark?'

'Shut up, Lawton,' Thomas countered.

'How come you're wearing that, then? It's not like it's cold out,' the Gryffindor continued, reaching to grab Thomas' left arm. 'Why don't you show us and prove it?'

Morgan reacted in an instant, snatching the other boy's wrist before he managed to secure a grip. 'Get your hands off him!' Morgan snarled, twisting Lawton's wrist backwards as the Gryffindor let out a shriek of pain.

'Hey!' Shane Vittles, taller and broader than any of the Slytherin boys, interrupted. 'Leave him alone!'

'Happily,' Morgan spat, shoving the Gryffindor back towards his housemate. 'As soon as he leaves us alone!'

Vittles pulled out a wand, aiming it squarely at Morgan's neck, but the Slytherin only stared back at the taller boy.

'What? Are you expecting me to stand here and crap myself?' Morgan ignored the rapid flutter of his breathing. 'I'm not scared.'

The Gryffindor withdrew his wand, whipping it back to shout an incantation, and Morgan took the split second's chance. Squatting to his knees, he threw himself headlong into a rugby tackle that hit Vittles around the midriff and sent him crashing to the ground.

Within a moment, the two children were locked together, a flailing mess of arms and legs, and then frozen in their scuffle by the wand of a passing prefect.

'I really don't have time for this,' the seventh-year boy drawled, looking from one first-year to the other. 'Twenty points off, each,' he snapped, 'and if you're ever caught… wrestling… in the corridors again, then you can expect a good deal more. Go.'

The prefect stood watch whilst the younger boys trudged the short distance to their History of Magic study lesson, where the Slytherin boys filled in a table alongside Tyler.

'Woah…' the Gryffindor blinked, taking in the bruised eye and bloodied nose that Morgan now sported. 'What happened?'

'What do you think?' Morgan retorted.

'Them…'

Morgan nodded. 'You should see what Vittles looks like, though,' he grimaced, feeling the cut on the base of his nose.

Thomas smiled, thinly. 'Thanks, mate,' he murmured.

'It's okay,' Morgan acknowledged, 'he deserved it…' the eleven-year-old winced again, running his fingers around the edge of his eye socket, 'and anyway, I owed you one.'

Glyn, Jai and Cameron were standing outside the first-years' classroom an hour later as the bells rang to end the study lesson.

'Bloody hell,' Jai breathed, catching sight of Morgan's face as the first-year left the room.

'Don't,' Thomas pre-empted the Hufflepuff's questions. 'You can guess. We just want to go back to the dungeon.'

'Morgan!' Theo was the first of the second-years to notice the younger boy's predicament as the first-years returned to the Slytherin common room.

Greg looked up sharply, alerted by his friend's raised voice. 'Morgan…' he echoed. 'Glyn?'

'We didn't see it,' the Welsh boy immediately defended himself. 'It happened before History.'

'Are you okay, Morgan?' Greg stood up, walking across to the first-year's seat, and the first-year nodded, mutely. 'Sure?'

'I've had worse,' Morgan muttered.

'Lucas,' Greg called. 'What do you think?'

The redheaded boy made his way across the common room to join his friends. 'It's going to be a black eye, isn't it?' Lucas concluded. 'I mean, we could clean the blood up easily but if it's broken…' he tailed off, 'I don't know if Episkey works if you don't know what you're trying to fix.' Lucas took a deep breath. 'You should probably go to the hospital wing.'

'I'll go with,' Theo didn't hesitate to volunteer his support. 'Anyone else?'

'I'm in,' Isaac stood up. 'I can do this much. Take our stuff to Charms, guys.'

Greg nodded. 'Sure,' he acknowledged. 'See you in Charms.'

'I swear we didn't see it,' Glyn repeated, watching the other first-years leave alongside Theo and Isaac.

'I believe you,' Greg assured the Hufflepuff boy. 'It's obvious it didn't just happen… the blood had dried…'

Glyn exhaled, deeply, dropping down onto one of the common room's black sofas.

'Glyn…?' Cameron sat down beside his friend. 'Are you okay, mate?'

The Welsh boy sighed.

'Glyn?' Greg echoed the other Hufflepuff's concern. 'What is it?'

Glyn swallowed. 'Promise you'll believe me?'

'Promise,' Greg replied, quickly.

Glyn looked half-upwards, fixing the Slytherin with a long stare. 'I don't think I know who I am any more.' The room fell quiet as Glyn's gaze fell back to the marble floor. 'Everything about the Heir of Merlin, the Heir of Glyndwr, like I'm supposed to have some special powers!' he looked up again, his eyes flashing. 'Like in Defence, when we keep coming up against these weird creatures from Wales or Ireland, and everyone expects me to know what they are and to know what to do because of my great-great-great-whatever grandfather, 600 years ago, or because of Merlin, whoever the hell he was! They're two of the greatest wizards of all time, and I'm just a twelve-year-old kid! What am I meant to do?'

'Do you think Glyndwr always knew what to do next?' Cautiously, Greg turned his friend's question around. 'I mean, wasn't it just the first week of his rebellion when they lost a battle and half his supporters changed sides?'

Glyn blinked. 'Greg...' he stammered, 'how do... how did you know that?'

'Did you think I'd just ignore it all?' Greg challenged the Hufflepuff. 'Especially after that night when the Hunt came back, and everything we heard in McGonagall's office? I'd be a pretty rubbish friend if I didn't make any effort to find anything out about it, wouldn't I?'

Glyn managed a smile. 'Thanks, mate.'

'I haven't!' Cameron burst out. 'I never even thought about it! I didn't know!'

'It's okay, Cam,' Glyn reassured his housemate. 'It doesn't matter. I never expected anyone to be interested in the stories.'

Cameron blushed. 'We still should have done something,' he insisted.

Lucas nodded. 'Maybe this would be a good time to arrange a study lesson?' he suggested. 'It is weird, how almost all of the creatures we're studying have something to do with Wales. Have you guys got anything on this afternoon?'

'No,' Jai answered for the Hufflepuff boys. 'I'll ask Buckley if he can find us a classroom at lunchtime.'

'Cool,' Greg acknowledged. 'We can think about what we're going to do during Charms.'

That afternoon, the second-years found themselves in an empty classroom, a few doors along from the entrance to the Hufflepuff cellar.

'This big enough for you?' Dan Buckley, Hufflepuff prefect and Head Boy, had asked the boys from his House as they followed him into the room. 'You know how to lock a door, right?'

'Yeah,' Glyn answered quickly. 'Colloportus.'

'Right you are,' the prefect smiled, 'enjoy.'

The three Hufflepuffs were joined by Joshua, Aidan and Ciaran from Gryffindor, and Greg, Isaac and Lucas from Slytherin.

'Where's Theo?' Aidan asked.

Greg smirked. ' _Busy_ ,' he emphasised the word, 'with Chloe Marshall, I think.'

A handful of the other boys laughed, whilst a couple wolf-whistled.

'Slytherin and Gryffindor,' Joshua observed. 'Who'd have thought it?'

Isaac snorted. 'As if they'll do anything more than holding hands,' he predicted.

Joshua shrugged. 'Who cares what they do? Last year, they'd never even have had the chance.'

'Yeah,' Greg agreed with his friend, 'it just shows that things are getting better,' he paused, 'and anyway, we're not just here to talk about Theo, we've got other stuff to worry about.'

'Like what?' Aidan asked. 'It's only like the third week,' he noted. 'We haven't done that much in lessons yet.'

'Speak for yourself,' Isaac retorted, 'I nearly died twice.'

Joshua reddened, instantly, and Greg, sitting beside him, let an arm rest on his friend's shoulder. 'It's not just that,' the blond Slytherin continued. 'Defence lessons are way more dangerous than they were last year... and it can't be a coincidence that almost all the creatures we keep coming up against are Welsh.'

The room fell quiet as the other boys' eyes turned to look towards Glyn.

'And that's the other thing,' Greg continued, 'everyone can't keep expecting Glyn to know everything about something just because it's Welsh. Sure, he might do sometimes, of course he will, but it's not fair on him to on keep expecting it.'

Glyn blushed. 'Sorry...' He stared down at the floorboards between his feet.

'It's not your fault,' Ciaran spoke up. 'Didn't we learn anything last year? We do our best when we stick together!'

'It's only been three weeks, though,' Aidan argued back again. 'Yeah, we've seen lots of stuff from Wales, but it's only three weeks! It _might_ just be a coincidence.'

Greg rolled his eyes. 'Oh, come on, mate!' he exclaimed. 'Have you looked at the rest of the textbook? Nearly half of it is about Welsh creatures!'

'So?' Aidan kept his composure. 'Surely that's because there are more creatures from Wales than England? Cause of all the hills, lakes and mountains?'

Greg felt the roof of his mouth begin to dry out. 'Well...' he stammered, 'that might be it... but Jenkins seems obsessed with it, too...'

'Greg,' Joshua interrupted, 'I know you're trying to help, mate,' he reasoned, 'but are you sure you aren't just seeing something that isn't really there?'

Greg's face reddened. 'No!' he snapped.

'It doesn't matter,' Lucas couldn't listen to his friends argue for any longer. 'Whether or not there's anything else going on, we still need to learn more about Welsh creatures and Welsh magic, and not leave it all to Glyn.'

Aidan nodded. 'Fair enough,' he agreed. 'So what are we going to do here, today?'

In spite of Greg's pleas, none of the boys could stop themselves from turning back to Glyn.

'I know,' Lucas announced, uncharacteristically boldly. 'We'll do healing spells. No matter what, they'll _always_ be useful.'

'Good idea,' Greg jumped on the chance to move the conversation onwards.

'Yeah,' Glyn quickly agreed. 'Which ones do you know, Lucas?'

Lucas hesitated. 'Well,' he murmured, 'I guess I'm best at Tergeo and Episkey.'

'What about that one you used on me?' Isaac asked. 'You know, after the Water Leaper stung me?'

'Anapneo,' the redhead answered, simply. 'I'm not sure I know that one well enough to teach you it.'

'That's okay,' Greg reassured his friend. 'Let's just do the other two. I know I still need to practise them.'

'Hold on,' Jai spoke up. 'If we're doing healing spells, don't people need to be injured first?'

Joshua shrugged. 'I don't mind,' he announced, digging inside his satchel for the sharp tip of an unused quill, and pulling the sleeve of his shirt up to reveal his freckled forearm. 'It's only a cut, right?'

Greg swallowed. 'It doesn't need to be a big cut, Josh,' he insisted, 'and anyway, we'll take it in turns, won't we?'

The group of boys chorused their agreement, although anybody looking at Cameron would have seen the little Hufflepuff unmistakeably turn pale, and the rest of their study period passed in a mixture of blood and wandwork. All nine second-years proved themselves able to clean and heal a short gash without too much practice, although Cameron's wand hand was far from steady when he first met the sight of Ciaran's blood. Whilst the children were too polite to comment on the irony of an injured boy comforting his own first-aider, the Hufflepuff couldn't help but notice.

'Well done, mate,' Ciaran stretched his healed arm. 'That's great.'

Cameron looked back at his partner with reddened eyes. 'Only cause you didn't let me stop,' he protested. 'Like that would be any good in a real fight. No wonder I'm not in Gryffindor!' He turned his back on the sandy-haired boy, striding away to the corner of the room.

Ciaran followed the other eleven-year-old. 'So what if you're not in Gryffindor?'

Cameron shrugged. 'You know what I mean! Everyone else is doing this so easily and I can't even look at a little bit of blood without feeling sick! I bet everyone thinks I'm a total coward!'

'We don't,' Ciaran insisted.

'Sure,' Cameron turned away again, sarcastically dismissing the other boy's argument. 'Of course you don't...'

'Cam...' Ciaran lowered his voice. 'Remember last year,' he swallowed. 'You know how everyone in Gryffindor treated me...'

The Hufflepuff looked around, meeting Ciaran's eyes once again.

'I was convinced I should never be in Gryffindor. I even went to see Professor McGonagall about it.' Ciaran took a deep breath. 'She told me that if the hat put me in Gryffindor, then I was meant to be in Gryffindor. Then she told me,' he stammered, 'she told me it was impossible to be brave if you weren't afraid of something in the first place. None of _us_ are being brave today. Just you.' Ciaran felt his own eyes sting at the memory but tried to force a smile onto his face regardless.

'Really?' Cameron murmured.

'Really.'

Cameron pushed himself to his feet, unfastening the cuff of his shirt and revealing his forearm. 'Now it's your turn.'


	11. Waiting Games

The second-years soon had reason to be thankful for their newly-acquired healing skills, as teaching the first-years to defend themselves proved far from a risk-free occupation. Thomas nearly knocked Theo sideways with his first attempt at the disarming spell, whilst Tyler's stunners proved surprisingly fierce for a boy of his size, and the eleven-year-olds found themselves looking ahead to their first duelling practice with excitement rather than dread.

'Well, then,' Professor Jenkins opened the lesson without delay, 'we've talked about the theory, now let's see some practice. Let's start with, oh, let me see... Vittles and Barton.'

Tyler swore under his breath as he heard his name called.

'Come on, mate,' Morgan whispered, 'you can do it; you can beat him.'

'Yeah,' Thomas echoed, 'just watch out, though: I bet he tries to cheat.'

Tyler nodded. 'Thanks, guys.'

'Excellent,' Jenkins continued. 'Now, we will be duelling at this end of the classroom,' he indicated a vacant area behind the last row of desks, where a simple wooden stage, around six yards long and half as wide, with white crosses marked at either end, stretched across the room. 'So, if you'd both like to come with me. Now, Vittles, that end of the stage please. Barton, yes, right you are, well, on three... One, two...'

'LEVICORPUS!'

'Protego!'

A purple orb pulsed around Tyler, knocking the jet of light from the taller Gryffindor harmlessly away and into the floorboards.

'Levicorpus!'

'Protego!'

Thomas grinned. 'His shields are awesome...'

'Yeah,' Morgan agreed, 'but Vittles has to be pretty thick to keep trying the same thing over and over again.' He watched as two more spells were easily deflected by Tyler's defence.

'It's _Vittles_ ,' Thomas echoed, disparagingly. 'What did you expect?'

The bully aimed a fifth spell at Tyler's shields before stopping, and turning, indignant, to the teacher to complain. 'He's cheating!'

'No...' Jenkins' reply began, only to be interrupted by Tyler's yell.

'STUPEFY!'

The teacher smiled. 'Just waiting for his opportunity.'

Vittles' paralysed body crashed into the floorboards with a loud thud, which was soon drowned out by the cheers from Tyler's friends.

'Five points to Gryffindor,' Jenkins announced, quietening the Slytherin boys' celebrations.

'That was awesome, mate,' Morgan high-fived the blond Gryffindor as he slid back into his table.

'Look,' Thomas added, 'Jenkins is still trying to wake Vittles up again... I guess you really meant that one.'

Tyler beamed. 'I think I did.'

Thomas and Morgan both won their own duels easily, before Jenkins insisted that they needed a "proper contest" and pitted them against one another, and Thomas' experience proved the difference. After a couple of spells had been blocked, Morgan missed his next attempt at a shield charm and found himself, as Theo had been some weeks before, thrown against the wall by Thomas' disarming spell.

'Ouch...' the muggle-born boy rubbed his elbow, gingerly edging back into his seat. 'I thought _Expelliarmus_ was just meant to take your wand?'

'It did, didn't it?' Thomas returned his friend's wand.

Morgan grunted, but any other comebacks in his mind were quickly forgotten as Jenkins called on Leif to duel with Lawton. 'Good luck...'

'Come on then,' the Gryffindor taunted his opponent as the teacher counted them in. 'Bet you're going to try the same plan as your midget friend,' he snarled, 'well it won't work,' he stepped forward, jabbing his wand towards Leif. 'I'm not going to give you a chance.'

'Glisseo,' Leif whispered under his breath, pointing his wand downwards as he spoke, before edging back, away from Lawton, and tempting the Gryffindor towards him.

'Scared, little squib?' Lawton teased. 'Nobody here to fight for you? Where you going? Come on, why don't you fight like a man... Oh, crap!' the Gryffindor's feet slid from beneath him as he came across Leif's charmed patch of floor.

'Immobulus.' It was easy for the Slytherin to level his wand, and hit his defenceless target.

Jenkins clapped his hands. 'Excellent, excellent,' he congratulated the victor. 'I think you'll find that brain wins over brawn almost every time. Five points to Slytherin. As for Gryffindor, well, Mr Lawton, I'm afraid your language has undone Mr Barton's excellent spellwork. Five points away.'

Tyler sighed.

'Bad luck, mate,' Morgan consoled his friend.

'It's alright,' Tyler acknowledged, 'and worth it too, to see those two look like idiots.'

'Yeah,' Thomas grinned, 'I've been waiting a long time to see that. I bet they don't give us half as much trouble any more.'

Sure enough, the first-years found their paths around the castle altogether more simple after that particular lesson. Tyler's close friendship with the three Slytherins was cemented, and the boys also found themselves on good terms with another Gryffindor boy, the red-haired Dean Collins. Even with their success, however, the fourth Slytherin first-year, Anton Garnett, still chose to keep to himself. The pattern of school life began to settle down into a steady routine, and the countdown to the first round of Quidditch matches gathered pace.

Unfortunately for Slytherin, this was a countdown that was passing much too quickly, as both Sebastian and Oscar found themselves confined to the Hospital Wing as an outbreak of Black Cat Flu hit the school, leaving the defending champions two men short ahead of the first match of the new season.

Matthew knocked on the door of the first-year boys' dormitory late on Friday evening, less than twelve hours before the game was scheduled to begin. 'Guys,' he pushed the door open slowly. 'Anyone awake?'

Morgan and Thomas were sitting, cross-legged, on a rug between their two bunks, engrossed in a game of cards, whilst Leif stretched out on Morgan's bed, head buried in a book.

'It's not a school night,' Morgan defended himself, automatically, and Matthew smiled.

'I couldn't care less about that, mate,' he assured the first-year. 'What I'm worried about is the Quidditch tomorrow.'

Morgan sat up straight. 'Oh?'

'I just went up the Hospital Wing. Seb and Ossie can't play. We're two short.'

'What are you going to do?'

Matthew planted himself on Thomas' vacant bed. 'I guess that depends on you guys.'

Thomas swivelled around, immediately forgetting about the hand of cards in front of him. 'Us?'

'Who else is going to play?'

Thomas swallowed. 'Crap...'

'Are you up for it?'

The first-year looked back at his friend. 'What do you think, Morgs...?'

Morgan shook his head. 'I don't know,' he admitted, 'I've no idea about Quidditch, I've never seen a proper match before.'

'That doesn't matter,' Matthew countered, 'Greg and Theo had never seen it before last season.'

'What happens if we don't play?'

Matthew sighed. 'Then I guess we have to forfeit.'

'No,' Morgan raised his voice forcefully, distracting Leif from his book. 'You can't forfeit.'

'Then you've got to play.'

Morgan nodded. 'Okay,' he took a deep breath. "I'm in. Tom?'

The other first-year nodded, cautiously. 'Yeah, alright. What positions do you want us to play?'

Matthew managed a thin smile. 'Thanks, guys. I think Greg's gonna play as seeker instead of Ossie, so I guess we'll need one chaser and a keeper.'

'I used to be goalkeeper for my school football team,' Morgan offered.

'I'll play chaser, then,' Thomas added.

'Cool,' the older boy acknowledged. 'Now, I really do reckon you guys _should_ have an early night. See you in the morning.'

'See you.'

Slytherin managed to field a full side for their opening fixture against Gryffindor, but the boys' inexperience was no match for an opposition team desperate to make amends for the previous year's shock defeat. Greg, in particular, had a painful morning: knocked off his broom twice inside the first half-hour, he found his opposite number, Gryffindor's seventh-year captain Jason Newitt, far too good for him.

Matthew and Isaac managed a handful of consolation goals for Slytherin, but with Gryffindor on all-out attack, most of their energy was devoted to defensive duties, and making Morgan's debut in front of the hoops less like the "human target practice" that Dan Beretta had described at the first interval.

Greg hadn't even caught sight of the snitch when Newitt plunged into a dive just before the end of the second period, plucking the golden ball from in front of the professors' box, sealing a convincing victory by 390 points to 60.

Tyler was standing at the back of the Gryffindor section of the terraces, alongside Leif and the second-year Hufflepuffs, as the final whistle echoed around the stadium and a loud cheer rung out from the older Gryffindors.

'Alright, Ty?' Joshua tapped the eleven-year-old on the shoulder. 'Enjoy your first game?'

Tyler shrugged. 'This feels weird,' he admitted. 'I know I should be really happy because Gryffindor have won, but I feel really bad for Tom, and for Morgan especially,' he swallowed, 'I don't know what I should say to them later...'

'Don't say anything,' Glyn suggested. 'We never do when Mum comes home after the Harpies lose.'

'So just ignore it?' Tyler checked.

Glyn nodded. 'Yeah,' he confirmed. 'Dad calls it "Operation Obliviate". It's hard, especially when you want them to know that it's okay, that you don't think any different just because they lost, but if they want to talk to you about it, then they will do.'

'Won't stop us!' Aidan grinned, 'not after last year's final, Isaac will hear about it!'

Joshua smiled. 'Zac deserves it,' he agreed, 'but Morgan and Tom don't.'

It was with Glyn's advice still at the forefront of his mind that the younger Gryffindor followed Leif back down the passageways that led to Slytherin dungeon.

'They'll be back later,' Leif explained, simply, before settling on one of the many black sofas that were dotted across the common room, and leaving Tyler to slump on his own seat as he waited for the Quidditch players, who trudged in a little more than half an hour later.

'Ty...' Morgan was the first to notice the Gryffindor boy.

Tyler forced a weak smile. 'Hi, Morgan,' he swallowed.

'How come you're here?' Thomas jumped into the conversation. 'Why aren't you at the Gryffindor party?'

'Tom...' Greg's voice rose in warning, but the first-year didn't listen.

'You won, we lost, you stuffed us! We know!' Thomas continued, taking a couple of short steps towards Tyler. 'We don't need you to rub it in our face!'

Tyler's face paled. 'Tom...' he stammered, slowly getting to his feet. 'I didn't... I never...'

'Oh, piss off,' Thomas snapped, shoving Tyler roughly back into his seat.

'Tom!' Greg shouted, grabbing hold of the first-year's collar. 'What the hell are you doing?'

'What does it look like?' Thomas spluttered.

'It looks like you're a being a complete dickhead!' Greg glared at the younger boy.

'But... but...' Thomas' eyes began to water. 'What about Tyler?'

'What about Tyler?' Greg didn't relent. 'What makes you think he's come here to take the piss?'

Thomas whimpered, trying and failing to look Greg in the eye. 'Why... why else would he be here?'

'Well,' Greg cast a glance at the frightened Gryffindor, 'Leif must have let him in, and I don't think he would've done that without a decent reason. Maybe he thought he'd rather be down here, with his _friends_ , even though we got beat, than at the Gryffindor party?'

Tyler nodded, slowly, and Thomas shuddered as Greg loosened his grip, before turning on his heel and running for the spiral staircase that led to the dormitories without another word.

'Sorry about him, Ty...' Morgan offered.

'It's okay,' the little Gryffindor managed a quiet reply. 'I never wanted to, to rub it in...'

'I believe you, Ty,' Morgan added, 'You're not like that,' he swallowed, 'and I think Tom knows that, too. It's just... he just... he jumps to the worst conclusion sometimes. He'll get it.'

'Thanks...' Ty managed a thin smile. 'I hope so.'

As afternoon turned into evening, Thomas still hadn't emerged from the hiding place of his bed, and upstairs in the common room, the other first-years decided it was time to intervene.

'It's like after that House meeting,' Morgan reasoned, remembering the state his friend had ended up in that evening. 'I bet he thinks that he's screwed everything up again, and now nobody will want to be his friend any more.'

Tyler blinked. 'Why would he think that?'

The Slytherin sighed. 'I don't think he had many proper friends before Hogwarts. I don't know how much I should tell you...'

'It's okay,' Tyler quickly reassured the other boy, 'you don't have to.'

Morgan nodded. 'Thanks,' he murmured. 'We should go down and see him now, I think.'

'Both of us?'

'Yeah,' Morgan's voice grew more confident. 'He needs to know that you still want to be friends, even if he was being a dick.'

'I'm coming too,' Leif dropped his book, 'and don't forget the rocky road we brought from dinner.'

Morgan led the way down the spiral staircase to the corridor that held the Slytherin boys' dormitories, before pushing open the heavy door that led to the first-years' room. 'Tom?' he broke the silence. 'Tom, are you in there?'

'He might have gone to sleep,' Tyler suggested, his eyes turning to the drawn curtains around the nearest bunk.

Morgan swallowed, recalling the sight that had greeted him the last time he'd forced open the curtains around Thomas' bed. 'Tom,' he raised his voice once, twice, before glancing towards his friend's bedside table, exhaling with relief at the absence of a quill or an inkwell, and edging towards the thin gap in the fabric. 'Tom,' he called again, catching a fleeting glimpse of the other boy's closed eyes through the opening. He clapped his hands loudly, calling Thomas' name again, and was rewarded by a muffled stirring from the hidden sheets.

'What... What is it?'

'It's just us, Tom,' Morgan took a deep breath. 'Me, and Leif, and Ty...'

Thomas sniffed. 'I told you,' he grunted. 'I told you... you shouldn't want to be friends with me...'

Morgan sighed. 'That's too bad, then,' he retorted, 'cause it's too late, we already are. Now, open up,' he ordered.

'No!'

'You'll have to come out at some point,' Leif took over. 'You can't just keep hiding in there.'

'So what if you screw up?' Morgan pressed. 'Look at the second-years! Look how much Josh and Greg hated each other before they became friends!'

Tyler waited for a reply which never came, before trying again. 'You've never had any _real_ friends before, Tom, have you?' he asked, rhetorically.

A loud sob echoed from behind the curtains. 'Ty...' Thomas' voice choked. 'Why are you still here?'

'Cause,' Tyler's voice caught, 'this is what real friends do. Even when someone f...' he swallowed, reddening, 'when someone screws up, even when they act like a dickhead, real friends know that it's just a bad day, just one screw-up, and they're still the same person they wanted to be friends with in the first place, the first person who stood up against Vittles and Lawton when none of the rest of us dared. That's who you are, Tom...'

Thomas took hold of the drawstring inside his bunk, and, slowly but surely, inched the curtains open. 'Ty,' he mumbled, 'do you really mean that?'

The Gryffindor nodded. 'Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?'

Thomas shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the red base layer that he still clutched close to his pale chest. 'I'm sorry I told you to piss off, Ty,' his words stumbled out of his mouth. 'I just didn't think, not like Greg did, I never guessed you'd want to be with us instead of the Gryffindor party, I... I...'

'It's okay,' Tyler insisted. 'You know now.'

'Yeah,' Thomas forced a weak smile, sitting up in his bed. 'Thank you.'

Morgan sat down on the vacant end of the bunk. 'Keep that base layer, mate. I don't want it back,' he smiled. 'You know the second-years say _Slytherins Stick Together_ ,' he continued, thinking out loud, 'well, we can't say that, because we're not just Slytherins, we've got Ty as well. We need to have something that means the same thing, but counts for everyone.'

'I've got an idea,' Tyler ventured. 'In Cornwall, on our Coat of Arms, it says "one and all". That sort of means the same thing, doesn't it?'

Leif nodded. 'That's good,' he agreed.

'Okay,' Morgan announced, 'that's it, then.' He held a hand out, beckoning the others to do likewise. ' _One and all_.'

Iestyn Jones stood with his back to the drab grey buildings that clustered together to form Ysgol Castell Harlech, dwarfed in the shadow of the 13th-century fortress that towered over the little town on the west coast of Wales. It was clear to anyone who saw Glyndwr and Iestyn Jones together that the two boys were brothers: they shared the same serious expression, straight, brown hair and gentle tan, and with four years between them there was enough distance for their fraternal bond to overwhelm any sibling rivalry. During holiday time, the Jones boys were barely separated, but halfway through the long Christmas term, Glyn's absence left a hole in the life of his younger brother.

'Pedwar! Dosbarth Pedwar!' a teacher's shout echoed out, calling out the Welsh language name of Iestyn's Class Four, and the eight-year-old turned, making the slow trudge back to lessons after the half-term break take as long as possible. 'Iestyn?' the teacher spoke again as Iestyn pushed open his classroom door. 'We have a new boy joining us today,' she continued. 'Llywelyn Tudur,' the teacher indicated a short, white-blond child with a busy scattering of freckles across his thin face. 'I wondered if you wouldn't mind showing him around?'

'Oh,' Iestyn caught the surprise in his own voice. 'Yes, Miss Williams,' he nodded. 'Of course.'

'Good boy.'

Iestyn nodded his head, smiling for a moment before trotting across to a desk at the side of the long, thin classroom and waiting for Miss Williams to shepherd the new boy to the vacant seat alongside him.

'Hi,' Iestyn greeted the newcomer.

Llywelyn stared at the grey plastic lacquer on his empty desk. 'Hello.'

'Do you like rugby?'

'No.'

'Football?'

'No.'

'Do you like any sports?'

'None you'd have heard of.'

Iestyn rolled his eyes. 'Whatever,' he sighed, looking up as Miss Williams wrote the date and title of their morning's writing on the board. 'The books are in that box, over there,' he pointed across the classroom to a squat set of shelves. 'She expects you to write at least a page in half an hour.' Iestyn watched Llywelyn trot across to the room, collect a blank exercise book and settle, wordlessly, to his task, and as the morning passed, very few words were shared between the two boys.

'Do you want to play football?' Iestyn broke the quiet as the bell for the morning's breaktime interrupted their maths lesson.

'No.'

'Fine, see you later then!' Iestyn stood up to hurry outside, only for his teacher's voice to call him back.

'Iestyn!' Mrs Williams trilled. 'What about Llywelyn?'

The eight-year-old groaned. 'I just asked him if he wanted to play football, Miss, and he doesn't, so...'

'Why don't you play something that he wants to play, then?' the teacher suggested. 'Llywelyn, what would you like to do?'

The blond boy swallowed. 'I'd just like to do some drawing.'

'Wonderful!' Miss Williams beamed. 'Iestyn, why don't you show him where the crayons and paper are? In fact, I think we'll all do some drawing after lunch...'

Iestyn gritted his teeth, cursing quietly under his breath before following the teacher's instructions. 'Yeah, wonderful,' he muttered, staring out of the window at the football game in which he would have much rather been playing, and resigning himself to a day spent shadowing a boy who didn't seem to have any interest in spending time with him at all.

Miss Williams kept her promise about the afternoon's plans, announcing that the class would be drawing dragons to illustrate their topic work on Welsh history, and by two o'clock Iestyn was once again gazing down at an HB pencil, hovering over a blank sheet of paper, without any real idea of what he would draw.

'Um...' a nudge on the elbow distracted Iestyn back to the classroom. 'Sorry, but she didn't say what kind of dragon...?'

Iestyn blinked. 'What do you mean, what kind of dragon?' he stared back at the boy alongside him. ' _Y Ddraig Goch,_ ' he switched languages, 'the Red Dragon. The Welsh Dragon... What else?'

Llywelyn's thin face blushed furiously. 'Oh yeah,' he mumbled, turning away from Iestyn, directing his full attention back to the paper, and leaving the boy even more perplexed than moments earlier. If only Glyn were here, Iestyn thought, he would know what to do, but he wouldn't see him for another six weeks. Owl post would have to do.

Glyn showed Greg his younger brother's letter, untidy as it was, the next morning as the second-year boys waited outside the Charms classroom.

'It's not like Iestyn to be worried by things like this,' the Hufflepuff explained. 'You've met him, you know he's laid back as you like.'

'What's the problem?' Greg checked.

Glyn grimaced. 'Well,' he paused on the word, 'that's just it, there's nothing that's obviously wrong,' he pushed the letter into his friend's hands. 'Just a new kid in his class, but like Iestyn says, something just _feels_ wrong... every Welsh kid should know _Y Ddraig Goch_ , especially one with a name as Welsh as Llewelyn Tudur.' Glyn's accent rolled around the surname, dragging out the vowels so that Greg's English ears heard a name that sounded more like "Tuddir". 'Then for him to say that he didn't like any sports that Iestyn knew...'

'Maybe it's just a weird sport that no one's usually heard of, like, I don't know, croquet?' Greg suggested.

Glyn stared back at his friend. 'Really? You think?'

Greg managed a half-cough, half-snort of laughter. 'Well, no,' he admitted, 'but it _could_ be.'

'Just like it could be fluke that we keep learning about Welsh monsters in Defence?'

Greg sighed. 'It could,' he murmured, 'but it probably isn't.'

'So what should I tell Iestyn? He hardly ever writes to me. This must have really got to him...'

'What are we doing about the Welsh monsters?' Greg asked, rhetorically. 'Watching and waiting, trying to learn as much as we can without letting Jenkins know we think something's up. Shouldn't he try and do the same?'


	12. Meibion Glyndwr

A steady stream of sweat was beginning to gather on Glyndwr Jones' forehead, as the twelve-year-old Hufflepuff, one hand clenched tightly around a beam on the low ceiling of the otherwise empty classroom, clutched the other fist around his wand, a thin purple shield shimmering around him.

'Three... Two... One!' Greg completed a countdown, turning his attention away from the watch on his wrist and towards the other second-year boys who stood in a circle around Glyn, taking their turns to attack. The shield flickered briefly, before blinking out as the third spell hit, and allowing the next stunner to strike the Welsh boy on the left leg.

'Ow!' Glyn yelled out a swear word, dropping the short distance to the floor and hopping in pain as he felt the force of the blow, instinctively clapping his hand over his shin. 'You're not supposed to fire at me after the shield's gone down, Cameron!'

Cameron reddened. 'I... I didn't mean to...' he stammered. 'I wasn't expecting your shield to... to... um...'

'Oh yeah, _thanks_ ,' Glyn snapped back, sarcasm drenching his voice. 'That _really_ helps.'

Cameron swallowed. 'I... I didn't...'

'It's okay, Cam,' Greg stepped forward, 'we all know you didn't mean to hit him,' he glared at Glyn, who was still holding his leg. 'Do you want Lucas to...'

'I'm fine!'

Greg took a deep breath. 'Well,' he broke the awkward quiet, 'I think everyone has had a go,' he summarised their practice, 'and I think we need to have another go at this next time. It's way harder to cast any spells when you're doing something else at the same time.'

A murmur of agreement drifted across the classroom, and the gathered second-years began to make their ways back to their various dormitories: all except Glyn, who stayed, head bowed and motionless, with his arms wrapped around his shins.

Greg stood still for a moment, watching the other boys leave the room, before making his own slow way across the room to squat alongside his friend. 'It's okay, mate,' he murmured.

'What is?' Glyn looked up, red eyes staring back at Greg's own.

'You'll get better at the shield.'

Glyn shrugged. 'I bet Merlin could survive against more than three stunners! How am I meant to be his heir? How am I meant to be any of these things everyone expects me to be when I can't even do a stupid little shield charm?'

'You're twelve...'

'So are you!' Glyn snapped, 'and so's Zac, and so's Josh, and you can all do it!'

Greg swallowed. 'So? You're not the only one of us who couldn't do it. Ciaran and Jai couldn't even manage to hold their shield for ten seconds. They didn't even get as far as facing the stunners.'

Glyn stared back at his friend. 'Do you think Owain Glyndwr could do this when he was twelve? Honestly?'

Greg sighed. 'I guess so,' he murmured.

'I knew it,' Glyn's face fell. 'I'm not good enough to be the Heir of Glyndwr...'

'Glyn,' Greg protested, 'it's just one spell.'

'No, it isn't!' the Hufflepuff's eyes narrowed even as they reddened. 'You know it isn't! You know that you and Zac and Josh are easily the best at all the Defence stuff. I'm lucky if I ever get better than Acceptable.'

'It's not just Defence, though,' Greg argued. 'Remember what the portrait said, back in McGonagall's office? She said Glyndwr was a leader, who made people work together like never before, and that he knew how to fight on the land around him... she never said he was a brilliant fighter.'

'He was, though. Every kid in Wales grows up knowing that. We even went on a school trip to see the Parliament House in Machynlleth...'

'But that's what he's remembered for first, though, isn't it? Uniting Wales on his side! He couldn't have fought the English if he didn't do that first!'

Glyn fell silent as his friend's words echoed inside his mind. 'I guess...' he mumbled... 'but...'

'You know what Theo would say to you now?' Greg cut the other boy off.

Glyn shook his head. 'Something about his rugby coach?'

Greg nodded. 'Yep. How did you guess?' he managed a thin smile. 'If _you_ don't think you can do it, then who else is going to?'

Glyn managed a thin smile.

' _That's_ what made the difference last year, anyway,' Greg continued. 'Not beating anyone in a fight, but making sure everyone was on the same side before the Wild Hunt came back.'

'That was you,' Glyn argued.

Greg shook his head. 'No it wasn't. You think a Slytherin could have got the other Houses working together? Nobody would ever have listened to anything we said. Nothing could have happened unless one kid from another House was the first one to trust us. Don't deny it, Glyn, you know it's true.'

Glyn nodded. 'Thanks, Greg,' he offered.

'That's okay,' the Slytherin acknowledged. 'Come on, mate,' he encouraged his friend to his feet, 'let's go to supper.'

'You can't show Glyn,' Lucas pulled the newspaper away from Isaac as he spread it across the end of the Slytherin table.

'Why not?' Isaac countered. 'He'll find out anyway, his brother will write to him again.'

'I'd want to know if I was him,' Theo put in. 'Especially if my friends already knew about it.'

'Knew about what?' the Slytherins' argument had distracted them from Greg's return. 'What's happened?' He pushed past his friends. 'Oh, crap...' his eyes skimmed the front page. 'Does Glyn know...?' He looked hurriedly across to the Hufflepuff table, where the Professor Sprout, Head of House, stood ominously in wait. 'Crap...' he repeated, watching a small group begin to cluster around the teacher, and making his way slowly towards it.

'Mr Jones,' Sprout spoke softly as the twelve-year-old approached her, 'should I assume you have seen the newspaper?'

Glyn stopped in his tracks. 'Newspaper?' he echoed.

'Perhaps for the best,' the teacher acknowledged, with a sigh. 'This is perhaps better learned in private.'

'What's happened?' the boy's eyes widened and his voice rose. 'Are my family alright?'

'Of course _your_ family are alright!' an unfamiliar voice yelled from the Gryffindor table. ' _Son of Glyndwr!'_

'Shut the hell up, Lawton!' Matthew stood up, shouting across the Great Hall. 'This is none of your business, so keep your ugly nose out of it!'

'Make me!'

'Enough!' Headmistress McGonagall, wand against her throat, rose to her feet. 'Private matters are not the subject for public debate, and they will remain that way. Professor Sprout, may I suggest you take Mr Jones to my office?' she paused, 'and as for the rest of you, may I suggest that you respect Mr Jones' privacy?' McGonagall lowered her wand, allowing a low murmur of conversation to drift back across the hall.

Sprout let a gentle hand rest on Glyn's shoulder. 'Mr Jones?' she repeated. 'Shall we?'

Glyn nodded, slowly, following the teacher on her way out, managing a weak smile as he passed Greg.

'Come down the dungeon later,' the Slytherin whispered. 'We'll stay up.' Greg stood, motionless, watching the Herbology Professor lead his friend away, before walking, dazed, back to his own House table to re-read the simple headline of the evening edition. ' _Killer Kelpie... 0; Knockout Kid... 1._ Honestly,' he shook his head, 'people get paid to write that rubbish?'

'There's a proper article inside,' Lucas offered. 'Page four,' he folded the newspaper over. 'Well,' he corrected himself, 'a better one, anyway. It still starts with alliteration.'

 **STATUTE OF SECRECY SHATTERED**

 _This morning, in the Welsh seaside town of Harlech, the International Statute of Secrecy was broken, to potentially deadly effect, as a wild kelpie was released into the playground of Harlech Castle School._

 _The kelpie, or water horse, preys on children by enticing the unwary youngsters to ride upon its back, before diving back into the ocean to drown its victims. This attack, however, was thwarted by the quick thinking and magical knowledge of young Iestyn Jones, youngest son of Holyhead Harpies captain Gwenog Jones. Iestyn, 8, a pupil at the muggle school, recalled that Kelpies, rated XXXX by the Ministry of Magic, can be thwarted by removing their bridle, and - whilst his classmates climbed enthusiastically onto its back - he set about unfastening the straps and saving his friends' lives._

 _Whilst wild kelpie attacks are rare - but not unheard of - a second incident in the little town must raise questions about whether this was, perhaps, something more. Ten minutes after the kelpie had been subdued, with numerous Ministry officials on hand, a sinister message appeared, painted onto the quiet road outside the school:_ Meibion Glyndwr dychwelant _: the Sons of Glyndwr return_.

'The Sons of Glyndwr?' Greg echoed. 'What...? Who are they?'

Lucas shrugged. 'No idea,' he admitted. 'Nothing to do with wizarding history, I don't think.'

Greg sank onto a vacant bench. 'Bloody hell...' he muttered. 'This is the last thing that Glyn needs.'

It was very late that evening, and well past curfew, when Glyn, in the custody of Hufflepuff prefect and Head Boy Dan Buckley, held his wand to the door of the Slytherin dungeon.

'Glyn!' Theo, sitting facing the door as he tossed a miniature quaffle aimlessly from hand to hand, was the first to notice his friend's arrival, and Greg, his attention buried in a thick, dust-wreathed book titled _Creatures of Snowdonia_ , jerked his head upwards in surprise.

'Now, make sure one of the Slytherin prefects sees you back...' Buckley began, only for Greg to cut him off.

'He can sleep here tonight if he needs to,' the Slytherin suggested. 'The sixth-year boys' dorm is always empty.'

The Head Boy's eyes narrowed. 'How come?'

Greg shrugged. 'We haven't got any.'

'Oh,' Buckley acknowledged. 'Fair enough. Right you are. See you tomorrow, Glyn.'

'See you,' Glyn echoed, 'and thanks.' He took a few steps across the marble floor of the Slytherin dungeon, and sunk into an empty black sofa.

'Is it true?' Theo ventured. 'What I read in the newspaper?'

Glyn sighed. 'Yeah,' he mumbled. 'Iestyn, the kelpie, the message in the road... all of it.'

'And the Sons of Glyndwr?'

'Theo, stop,' Greg interrupted his housemate. 'Glyn,' he swallowed, 'you don't have to go through it all again. Not now. Not for us.' He stood up, slowly walking across the common room before dropping onto the sofa alongside the other boy.

Glyn's eyes began to shimmer with the beginnings of tears. 'Greg, I'm sorry, I...'

'Glyn, stop...' the twelve-year-old repeated, feeling his voice shake. 'You haven't got anything to say sorry for,' he put a hand on his friend's shoulder. 'Do you want to stay here tonight?'

'Yes, please.'

'Come on, mate,' Greg helped the Hufflepuff to his feet. 'Let's go. Have you got any lessons tomorrow morning?'

Glyn shook his head.

'Me neither. We've got History after break. I'll come and get you before we go if you're not up by then.'

'Thanks,' the Welsh boy managed.

'It's okay,' Greg assured him. 'Night, mate.'

'Night.'

Greg closed the dormitory door, slowly shaking his head as he whispered to himself. 'What the hell is going on?'

The second-years had continued their plans from the year before in the History of Magic: taking it in turns to spend a lesson taking full notes on Binns' lectures before sharing copies later that day. With Lucas and Aidan on note-taking duties, Greg took the chance to catch up with Joshua.

'It's not a coincidence,' the Gryffindor quickly concluded. 'Dad taught me never to believe in coincidences.'

'Agreed,' Greg nodded, 'but _why_?' He sighed, letting the _Creatures of Snowdonia_ textbook slam shut on the desk in front of him. 'I wish Neal was still here.'

Joshua shrugged. 'He isn't, though, is he? We've got to figure it out ourselves.'

Greg thumped his fist against the hard cover of the textbook. 'Maybe not,' he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'Maybe the Room can help.'

Joshua turned to stare at the other boy. 'But...' he hesitated. 'You haven't told him, have you?'

'No,' Greg shook his head, decisively. 'I promised, didn't I? But...' he paused. 'If anyone needs it, I think Glyn does now.'

Joshua took a deep breath. 'Okay,' he murmured, 'but he has to swear not to tell anyone else.'

'I think we can trust him,' Greg replied, thinking back to the previous Easter, when Glyn had stood up for the Slytherin boys against his own mother.

'Okay,' Joshua confirmed. 'When?'

'When's the castle quietest?'

'First thing in the morning.'

Greg nodded. 'Yeah. Good idea. I'll meet you by the painting at seven o'clock.'

'Six.'

'Deal.'

Glyn's immediate reaction to Greg's request to meet him early that Sunday morning had been one of surprise, but - as Greg pointed out - the Slytherin had never given his friend any reason to distrust him, and he didn't take much persuading to meet outside the Great Hall. Greg still didn't think he could have put the route to the Room of Requirement in words, but he was nevertheless able to lead the Hufflepuff boy to the seventh-floor corridor without a wrong turning.

'Greg,' Joshua greeted his friend. 'Glyn.'

'Josh,' Greg acknowledged. 'Do you want to ask for it?'

Joshua shrugged. 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'It might be better if Glyn does.'

'Does what?' Glyn blinked.

'Maybe you'd better show him first,' Greg suggested. 'That might be easier. Show him the games room.'

'The _what_?' Glyn echoed, oblivious to Joshua's measured steps back and forth. 'What are you talking about, guys? There's nothing here, just that stupid portrait, and... and... and...' his voice faded as he noticed a door swimming into shape on the opposite wall.

'And the Room of Requirement,' Greg completed his friend's sentence, holding the door open for the other two second-years. 'Come on.'

Glyn's mouth fell open as he followed Joshua through the doorway. 'Wow...' he stammered.

'We discovered it this summer,' Greg explained. 'You walk past the portrait three times, thinking about what you want to find, and it appears. We spent most of our time up here.'

Glyn blinked. 'Wow,' he repeated. 'Does, does anyone else know?'

'No,' Joshua answered, bluntly, 'and you have to _promise_ that you won't tell anyone.'

'Okay,' Glyn raised his hands, taking a half-step backwards and away from Joshua's fierce expression, even as he watched Greg move to calm the Gryffindor. 'I promise.'

Joshua took a deep breath, but Greg's voice cut him off before he could say anything else. 'We can trust him, Josh,' the Slytherin assured him.

'I swear,' Glyn nodded, 'and thank you for showing me. Do you think... do you think it might be able to help me find more about Glyndwr?'

Greg shrugged. 'Can't hurt to try, can it? Remember, walk past it three times, thinking about what you want to find.'

A moment later, the twelve-year-old Hufflepuff stood outside the room, looking around at the familiar painting, before setting a determined look onto his face and pacing left and right as the door faded into existence in front of him.

'Do you want to go first?' Greg took hold of the doorknob, pulling it open as Glyn nodded his agreement, and Joshua followed him in.

'It's the library,' the Gryffindor breathed, 'Greg, you remember, when we asked about the History of Hogwarts...'

'Yeah,' Greg noted, 'I remember. I bet the books are different, though.' He glanced around the maze of tall bookcases, wondering what answers they might hold.

Glyn shook his head, sinking into a wide armchair that shifted beneath him as he sat down. 'Where do we start...?' he asked. 'There's thousands of books in here.'

'Why don't you ask again?' Greg pointed out a scrap of parchment on the table in front of his friend.

'Ask who?'

'The room.'

'What?' Glyn blinked. 'Ask the _room_?'

'Glyn,' Joshua interrupted, matter-of-factly. 'I know that sounds weird, mate, but look around you. You're in a room that magically changes itself into whatever you want it to be. Why shouldn't you be able to ask it stuff?'

The Hufflepuff nodded slowly. 'Okay,' he cleared his throat. 'Where can I find out about Owain Glyndwr and Merlin?'

The three boys turned their attention to the parchment in front of them, as the writing of an invisible hand faded into their view.

'942.9,' Joshua read. 'What the hell?'

Greg smiled. 'Look at all the shelves,' he pointed at a series of thin tickets that separated the mass of books. 'I can't remember what it's called, but it's a muggle system for arranging books... every library uses it, so you always know where you can find things.'

'That's smart,' the Gryffindor acknowledged. '942.9, yeah? Let's go.'

It only took the boys a few minutes to track down the right section of the vast library, and begin to finger through the hardback books it contained.

'They're all about Wales,' Joshua noted.

Greg stifled a laugh. 'I think that's the point. There's loads of little sections inside sections...'

'Oh, yeah,' Joshua managed a grin. 'I guess you muggles are cleverer than you look.'

Greg stuck his tongue out. 'Piss off, Josh.'

'Shush,' Glyn's voice rose in interest pointed to a thick volume. ' _Brenhinoedd Cymru_ ,' he lifted the book off its shelf, before realising that neither of his friends had understood the title. 'It means _The Kings of Wales.'_

'Cool,' Greg shared his friend's smile. 'I guess that's your Christmas holiday reading sorted, then.'

Four hundred miles away, Iestyn Jones walked across to Llywelyn Tudur as the white-haired boy stood by the schoolyard fence, staring out to the Irish Sea beyond. 'You alright, Llyw?'

'Yeah,' Llywelyn didn't avert his gaze. 'Fine.'

'Cool,' Iestyn nodded, striving to keep his voice level. 'I was just wondering, cause you was off school yesterday, I wondered if you was ill…'

This time the eight-year-old turned. 'I'm fine,' he almost choked on his reply, spluttering as the word left his lips and his pale face reddened. He pushed past Iestyn without a second glance, hurrying back towards the boys' classroom doors.

Iestyn turned back to face the sea, and smiled.


	13. Holiday Snaps

'See you, Ty,' Joshua high-fived his younger housemate as the eleven-year-old finished dragging his suitcase down the staircase from his dormitory towards the doors of the Great Hall. 'Have a great holiday, mate.'

Tyler grinned. 'See you. I'll write,' he promised.

'Bye, Tyler,' Thomas added, brushing his fringe away from his eyes. 'Bye, Morgan.'

'Aren't you coming on the train, Tom?' Morgan checked. 'Where's your case?' he looked around himself, realising his friend had turned away. 'Tom, are you staying here?'

Thomas stared at the floor.

'Why didn't you tell anyone?' Morgan pressed. 'No-one else in Slytherin is staying! You'll be all on your own...'

'I'm used to it.'

'So what! That doesn't make it right! You should have said, then you could have come and stayed with me, like Greg's going with Theo and Lucas is going with Zac.'

Thomas shrugged. 'My parents would never let me.'

'Fine,' Morgan's eyes blazed, and he shoved his own suitcase to the ground. 'Then I'm staying, too.'

'But...' Thomas began to argue, only for Morgan to immediately talk over him.

'Shut up, Tom,' Morgan insisted. 'If you're staying here, then so am I. End of story.'

Tyler smiled. 'See you, Slytherins,' he gave his friends a thumbs-up. 'Have a good Christmas.'

'You too, Ty,' Morgan acknowledged. 'Tell the others I'm staying here.' He threw an arm around Thomas' shoulders. 'Like they said, _Slytherins Stick Together._ '

'I'm staying, too,' Joshua noted, 'but I guess you knew that,' he lowered his voice as the three boys waved goodbye to Tyler. 'There's not usually very many who stay at Christmas, but it's alright. It's way more chilled out than term time. Everyone sits together in the Hall at mealtimes and stuff like that,' he smiled. 'Well, I'm going down the station to see the others off. I'll see you around.'

'See you later,' Morgan acknowledged, before turning to head back to the Slytherin common room, where the two first-year boys sat together on a low, black leather sofa, gazing into a flickering fire.

'Won't your mum miss you?' Thomas fiddled with the sleeve of the red base layer that he had worn almost daily since Morgan had given it to him a couple of months earlier.

Morgan shrugged. 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'Maybe if she'd written to me more than once, then I might. At least you know what your parents think about you. At least you know they're bothered,' he snapped, before instantly wishing he hadn't as he watched his friend shrink back into the corner of the seat.

Thomas' eyes narrowed. 'My parents don't care about me,' he whispered. 'My parents only care about what will happen to _them_ , because of me.'

'I'm sorry, Tom...' Morgan stammered an apology. 'I never meant... I didn't think...' he bit his lip, waiting for the other boy to reply.

Thomas stared at his housemate for a long moment, glaring at Morgan until he turned away to stare at his feet. 'I remember after the Quidditch match,' he began, 'when you told me it didn't matter if I screwed up, you still wanted to be my friend,' he swallowed, 'and that was what being real friends was all about.'

Morgan blinked, unsure of how to reply. 'It is, isn't it?' he offered, quietly.

Thomas sighed. 'I don't know,' he blinked, 'I hope so. I never had any real friends before, like you said. I never thought you'd forgive me for acting like I did to Tyler, but you all did, even Ty… and I don't think I would have... in fact, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't…' he sighed again. 'Not then, anyway.'

'What about now...?' Morgan ventured.

'Yeah, I think I would,' Thomas brushed his fringe behind his ears again, braving a smile. 'It's the best thing anyone ever did for me,' he paused, 'and you did it _twice..._ twice, even though I'd never done anything for you, and then this morning you chose to stay behind for the whole holidays, just because I was... I owe you one. I owe you way more than one...'

'Thanks, Tom,' Morgan acknowledged. 'I'm pretty sure you know what it's like to be real friends now.'

At Kings Cross station, an eight-year-old boy waited impatiently for the arrival of the Hogwarts Express, and the return of his older brother. Iestyn Jones hopped from one foot to the other as he watched the scarlet locomotive, half-hidden beneath a shroud of steam, pulling in to its platform, and failed completely to keep any shred of composure as he caught sight of his brother. 'Glyn!' he shouted, running towards the older boy before throwing his arms around his brother's waist and burying his head against his chest.

'Hi, Iestyn,' the second-year recovered his breath for long enough to ruffle his brother's hair and return the hug. 'I missed you too.'

'Alright, Iestyn?' Greg followed his friend from the train, and greeted the eight-year-old as he detached himself from Glyn. 'I heard what you did,' he smiled, 'that was awesome.'

Iestyn blushed. 'I had to,' he stammered, 'otherwise, otherwise the kelpie would have... would have...'

Glyn grabbed his little brother again. 'It didn't, though, did it?' he pulled Iestyn close. 'You beat it, you outsmarted it.'

Iestyn smiled. 'Do, do you think it was an accident?' he asked, 'or do you think someone sent it?'

Glyn glanced around the station platform, catching Greg's eyes as the Slytherin shook his head. 'Not here,' Greg whispered, and the Hufflepuff nodded.

'We'll talk later,' Glyn promised his brother, and the two Welsh boys began to head across the platform and back to their father. 'Enjoy Cape Town, mate,' he turned back to Greg. 'See you next term.'

The Jones boys took their father's hands, and with Iestyn waving sheepishly to the remaining second-years, Aneurin Jones vanished in the split second of side-along Apparation. Having returned to Castell Fach, it didn't take long for the two children to hide away in Glyn's bedroom and turn their conversation back to the day of the kelpie.

'The weirdest thing was Llywelyn,' Iestyn recalled. 'He never missed any other day of school. He always gets there early, so he can get the chairs down and give the books out for Miss Williams, but he wasn't there that day, and he went bright red when I asked him about it the next day.

'That's weird,' Glyn agreed. 'It might just be coinci…' he cut himself off. 'It's never coincidence. Do you think he knew?'

Iestyn winced. 'I know this will probably sound stupid, but I think… I think he's a wizard,' the eight-year-old took a deep breath. 'He doesn't seem like the others. He never plays football or rugby with any of us, and he's never tried making friends. He just reads these old books… I bet they're transfigured… and remember that letter I sent? When Miss Williams asked us to draw a dragon, he asked me _what kind of dragon_. No normal Welsh kid would ask that, they'd just draw the Red Dragon!'

Glyn nodded slowly, realising the implications of his brother's theory. 'So, you think, whoever is behind the Sons of Glyndwr stuff, they told Llywelyn to stay off school that day.'

'Yeah,' Iestyn bit his lip, waiting patiently as his brother considered his idea.

'It makes sense,' the older boy concluded. 'It fits with everything that's happened, and it's not too complicated,' he sighed, 'if only we knew who it was who set the kelpie on you… or what they want.'

Iestyn swallowed. 'Do you know anything about the Sons of Glyndwr?'

Glyn shook his head. 'No, nothing. I couldn't find anything at Hogwarts, but I got this book…' he scrambled across his room to his trunk. ' _Brenhinoedd Cymru_ ,' he read the cover, 'The Kings of Wales.'

'I don't think you'll find much in there,' Iestyn lowered his voice.

'Why not?'

Iestyn sighed. 'I heard Mum and Dad talking about it,' he admitted, 'a few days after it happened. There was a group of people… of muggles… in about the 1980s, who called themselves Meibion Glyndwr. They wanted English people out of Wales, and started burning down their homes.'

Glyn's eyes widened. 'For real…?'

Iestyn nodded. 'For real,' he confirmed. 'I asked Dad afterwards. I think it was when people moved into Welsh villages and didn't try to learn the language, or just used the houses for holidays. They haven't done anything since before we were born, though, and the muggle police arrested someone and sent them to prison.'

'So this is going to scare muggles as well,' Glyn concluded, 'especially if they remember what happened before,' he looked back at his younger brother, suddenly seeing a face that seemed far older than its eight years, 'and there's a kid in your class who's probably involved.'

The eight-year-old swallowed. 'What do you think I should do?' he ventured.

'I don't know,' the second-year admitted, 'it depends how badly you want to find out.' He took a deep breath. 'I guess one thing you could do would be to really try and make friends with Llywelyn.'

'With _him_?' Iestyn squeaked.

'I know,' Glyn shifted on his bed, moving to pull his brother close to him, 'but the more we find out, the more chance we have of working out what's going on… that's what we did last year.'

Iestyn blinked. 'Last year?'

Glyn exhaled. 'I guess I should tell you the story of the Wild Hunt.'

Several thousand miles away, Greg stood on the balcony at the back of the suburban house that Theo's parents had rented for the Christmas holiday. 'Wow...' he murmured. The imposing plateau of Table Mountain towered over the horizon, looming over the city of Cape Town as it spread out in front of them, stretching away to the bay below. Greg stretched his arms out, feeling the wind blow over his face and body. ''This is amazing!' he grinned broadly,

'Cool, hey?' Theo stood beside his friend, reflecting the other twelve-year-old's smile.

Greg nodded. ' _Way_ better than cool. Thanks so much for inviting me.'

'Thanks for saying yes,' Theo's voice dropped to a murmur. He shook his head, noticing his friend's puzzled expression, and hurried to change the subject. 'Hey, do you see that island?' he pointed out into the wide bay, to an isolated patch of land, where a handful of low, austere concrete blocks squatted.

'Yeah,' Greg followed the other boy's arm.

'That's Robben Island,' Theo explained, but Greg only blinked. 'Robben Island?' he repeated. 'Where Mandela was held?'

Greg stared, blankly, back.

'You haven't heard of Nelson Mandela?' Theo gaped. 'You must be joking?'

Greg shook his head, and Theo spluttered in disbelief, before launching into a hurriedly abridged biography of the man who was imprisoned on Robben Island for leading protests against the white minority government of South Africa, before becoming the country's first black president on his release.

'Oh,' Greg blushed as Theo finished the retelling with the story of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, where Mandela inspired the country to support the mainly-white national side through to victory in the final. 'I knew that South Africa used to be racist like that,' he admitted, 'but I didn't know that was the president's name.'

'Well, that's what it was,' Theo insisted, 'and that's the island where he was locked up, because the government said he was a terrorist, for years.'

'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter,' Greg recalled something that Neal Kennedy had told the class during the previous year's History of Magic lessons. He shook his head, staring down from the sharp peak of the mountain, back across Table Bay with the burden of history now weighing on his shoulders. 'It's not the same view any more,' he murmured. 'Not now that I know that.'

Theo grimaced. 'Sorry...'

'No, don't apologise,' Greg cut his friend off before he could say anything else. 'It's like going back to Wistman's Wood on Dartmoor... sort of... now we know that the Wild Hunt is real, well, I know it's not really the same thing but it's the same idea, isn't it? You never look at somewhere the same when you know more about what happened there. I bet it's the same for Glyn and Iestyn at the primary school in Harlech, going back after that attack...' he tailed off, realising he was rambling.

'I guess,' Theo slumped down onto the cushions of a black metal swing seat, his arms folded across his bare chest, and his head staring down at his feet.

'Theo?' Greg paused. 'Theo?'

'What?'

Greg blinked. 'I... uh... what's wrong?'

Theo took a deep breath, steeling himself to look up at his housemate. 'Greg,' he managed, 'am I still your best friend?'

Greg sat down.

'Cause it's okay if I'm not, really it is,' Theo fought to blink away the tears that threatened to betray his words. 'I know Glyn and Josh are more interesting than me... I'm just a muggle-born who's no good at anything that needs real magic, and you're better than me at everything...'

'Theo!' Greg raised his voice. 'Stop that! Don't say any more!'

'It's true, though!'

'No, it isn't!'

'It is!' Theo insisted. 'I'm crap at everything.'

'No, you're not,' Greg took a deep breath. 'You passed all your exams, didn't you?'

Theo blinked. 'Am I still your best friend?' he repeated.

Greg swallowed. 'Yes,' he answered, simply. 'Remember what I said when Glyn's mum gave me Veritaserum? Yeah, Glyn and Josh are really good friends now, but Josh hated me for a year, remember! You and me have been friends from the very first day, after the Sorting and that silly argument that we had on the first night, when we decided that Slytherin meant sticking together, no matter what. The others, yeah, they're my friends, but they're not Slytherins, they'll never really know what that means, what it was like at the start...'

Theo gave up on controlling his tears, and Greg grabbed his best friend around the shoulders. 'Sorry...' Theo mumbled. 'It's just... my old school... all my friends left...'

'Forget it,' Greg insisted, 'that's not happening to us. We're best mates forever.'

Back at Hogwarts, the handful of students staying for the Christmas break had settled into the slower pace of life without the constant reminder of the lesson bell.

There were fewer than two dozen children left in the school, and with most of them in the older years, the two Slytherin boys found themselves spending a lot of their free time with Joshua, either in the Gryffindor tower or the otherwise-deserted dungeon.

So it was one evening as the first-years found themselves on a warm rug in front of the Gryffindor common room fire, engrossed in a game of Exploding Snap, when the portrait hole burst open to reveal a furious-looking sixth-year.

'This school's going down the pan!' he complained, swearing under his breath. 'Hufflepuffs should be honoured to go out with Gryffindors. How could she even _think_ about saying no?' he kicked out at the back of a chair in front of him, before his eyes locked on the first-years. 'And that's another thing!' he snapped, his nostrils flaring. 'You Slytherins should know your place, and that's in the bloody dungeons! Preferably locked up!' He flashed his wand in the boys' direction, sending a white beam of light in their direction, past Joshua's too-late shield charm and into Morgan's unprotected chest, flipping the boy upside down before turning his attention to Thomas. 'How dare you wear red? Diffindo!'

Thomas' eyes widened, fearful, as the teenager's spell ripped across his base layer, tearing it across his front.

'Leave him alone!' Joshua stood up, stepping across the frightened first-years and sheltering them behind himself. 'What's he ever done to you?'

'Don't you remember the War?' the older boy slurred. 'All the Slytherins, pure-bloods, trying to wipe everyone else out!'

'Morgan's muggle-born!' Joshua summoned the courage to argue back, 'and during the war, he was three! How could _he_ have done anything?'

The sixth-year's eyes flashed. 'What about the other little snake? What about him? What did his parents do?'

Joshua swallowed.

'I bet they were bloody Death Eaters, weren't they? Do you know who killed my mother?'

'Do you know who killed mine?' Joshua's voice rose to a scream. 'Bloody _Voldemort_ himself, and you can go and look at the memorial if you don't bloody well believe me! These kids aren't Voldemort, they're first-years!'

The teenager sneered. 'Why don't you just go to Slytherin yourself if you love them so much? Locomotor Mortis!'

'Protego!' Joshua's shield absorbed the older boy's leg-locker curse. 'GLACIUS!' he yelled, and the jet of light from his wand cut through the teenager's weak shield before hitting him over the heart and freezing him within a block of ice. 'Why the bloody hell are you using a jinx that takes you that long to say anyway, you dickhead?'

'Mr Tregeagle,' a voice echoed from the portrait hole. 'Excellent spellwork, but rather more suspect language, I fear.'

Joshua turned slowly back to face the speaker, and instantly reddened. 'Professor McGonagall…' he stammered, 'h… how…'

'I do believe that the entire castle may have heard your last outburst, Mr Tregeagle.'

The twelve-year-old winced, before defending himself. 'He deserved it,' the Gryffindor boy insisted. 'He was attacking Tom and Morgan, for no reason except that they're Slytherins.'

The Headmistress kept her expression free from emotion. 'Mr Bennett has been an excellent influence on you,' she noted. 'Thirty points for your spellwork and your courage, minus ten for your language. Mr Williams…?' her eyes drifted to Morgan's still-inverted body.

'Levicorpus,' Joshua explained, simply.

'Take hold,' the Headmistress instructed, waiting for the two boys to support their friend. 'Finite.'

'Thank you, Professor,' Morgan managed.

McGonagall nodded. 'I shall deal with Mr Cardwell. I fear this is rather a case of the butterbeer talking. Locomotor Corpus.' She turned on her heel, heading back through the portrait hole with the sixth-year's frozen body following behind her.

'Are you alright, Morgan?' Joshua checked.

Morgan nodded, slowly. 'Yeah,' he confirmed, taking two short paces across to an armchair before sinking into it. 'Tom?'

The other first-year shook his head, holding his torn base layer in his hands in front of him.

'Reparo,' Joshua aimed his wand at the tattered shirt, holding it steady as he watched the base layer knit back together. 'That better?'

'Thanks…' Thomas stuttered, 'but… but it's not just that,' he explained. 'It's what he said… about my parents.'

'Tom,' Joshua talked over him. 'I don't care what your parents did. You're not them, and anyone who thinks you are is just as big a dickhead as him.'

Thomas' eyes began to water. 'He's not the only one who thinks like that, though, is he?'

'Tom…'

'It's true, isn't it?' the first-year insisted. 'That's all anyone thinks about when they see Slytherin, isn't it? Voldemort and the Death Eaters.'

'It's not everyone,' Joshua protested.

Thomas grunted, slumping down onto a sofa opposite Morgan and rubbing the sleeve of his mended base layer over his eyes. 'It is, pretty much.'

'What do people think about when they see Gryffindor?' Joshua challenged the first-year.

'Heroes,' Thomas shrugged. 'Harry Potter.'

'Did you know Harry Potter named his second son after a Slytherin?' Joshua snatched at a story that Greg had told him. 'Albus _Severus_ Potter.'

Thomas swallowed, but said nothing.

'Your House doesn't decide what sort of person you are, Tom, you do,' Joshua insisted, 'and anyone who judges you on the colour of your tie isn't worth bothering with. I know I wasn't!' the second-year choked back moisture in his own eyes. 'We swore, though, we swore that we were going to make a difference, we swore that by the time we were prefects, it wouldn't matter what House you were in, and it won't!' he took a deep breath, steadying his nerves before sitting down next to Thomas.

'I used to be one of those people,' he recalled his first-year, 'I used to think Slytherins were evil, pure-blood scum, even though I knew Greg and Theo were muggle-born. I used to tell Glyn he was in the Loser House… and I wouldn't be alive now if it wasn't for them. I was wrong,' he repeated, 'just like all of the old prejudice is, and it's going to change,' he insisted, 'because we're going to make it!'

Thomas nodded slowly, before – with effort – forcing a thin but determined smile onto his face. 'Like Tyler said,' he remembered. ' _One and all_.'

At the other end of the country, Tyler Barton was enjoying a rare moment where he could forget anything to do with magic, for right now all that mattered was the football soaring towards him, swerving on the gust of the January wind.

'Ty's ball!' he yelled, jumping to meet the ball with his forehead and deflect it past the goalkeeper and inside the post. 'GOAL! Rooney! Man Utd win!' Tyler yelled, only to be almost instantly mobbed by his team mates.

'Ty! Awesome, mate!'

'Brilliant!'

'When did you learn to jump like that?'

Tyler laughed. 'School,' he answered, half-truthfully. 'They make us work really hard in Games.'

'Cool,' one of his friends replied as the group of boys broke up, making their separate ways back to their village homes. 'I wish we did more football at school. We're in the quarter finals of the County Cup, but they still don't let us have any extra practices.'

Tyler thought back to a House meeting in the Slytherin dungeon. 'Why don't you organise one yourself, then, Finn?'

The other boy, sharp-faced and black-haired, blinked. 'Myself?'

'Yeah,' Tyler nodded, 'you're captain, aren't you? That's what would happen at H… at our school,' he kept talking, hoping that none of his friends would notice his hesitation. 'If you want something to happen, then you've got to make it happen.'

Finn swallowed. 'I… I never thought of that,' he admitted. 'Do you think they'd let me?'

'Why wouldn't they?'

Finn smiled. 'I wish you were at the College with us, Ty,' he admitted, sighing. 'It's not the same without you.'

'I know what you mean,' Tyler echoed.

'Hey,' the local boy's eyes sparkled. 'You know you're going back tomorrow? Fancy one last dare before you go back?'

Tyler thought for a moment. 'Yeah, alright!' he grinned. 'What's the dare?'

Finn turned, staring out over on the playing fields to the granite outcrop that squatted on a hillock at the edge of the ground. 'Up there,' he pointed to a ruined chapel that seemed to have either grown into or out of the rock face, depending on how you looked at it, 'on the Rock. Stay the night.'

Tyler's heart jumped, remembering what he now knew about the folk tales that the rest of the village thought they knew to be legend. 'You serious?'

'What?' Finn laughed. 'You scared?'

'Scared?' Tyler echoed, remembering all the things that he had seen over the last four months. 'You wish, mate!' He shoved his friend away, grinning. 'Come round to mine at eight.'

'Did you ask anyone else if they wanted to come?' Tyler asked, shuffling his body inside a thick sleeping bag as he struggled to get comfortable against the cold stone foundations.

'Just George,' Finn admitted, 'and he said we had to be mental to come and sleep up here, so I didn't bother asking anyone else.'

Tyler smiled, shaking his head at the same time. 'Didn't that make you think he might be right?'

Finn shrugged. 'What's the worst that could happen?' He challenged his friend. 'You don't believe in all that crap about the rock, do you?'

Tyler wrapped his sleeping bag ever more tightly around himself, hoping that the combination of its warmth and the January darkness would go far enough to prevent Finn from seeing his shivers. 'A hell of a lot of people know the stories,' he noted. 'Why would that happen if there wasn't a little bit of truth about it?'

'You think?' Finn hesitated, the earlier confidence draining out of his voice.

'Nah,' Tyler quickly interrupted, before his friend's thoughts had time to dwell. 'Just trying to scare you, mate,' he grinned. 'Ghosts? Really?'

'Git,' Finn threw a pebble, aimlessly, beyond his friend before settling down himself as the two boys exchanged empty stories of their new schools before drifting off into shallow, fitful sleep. Tyler's rest lasted until the other eleven-year-old grabbed him around the shoulders, shaking him awake with a fearful scream.

'Ty! Ty! Tyler! Wake up! Wake up!'

'What...?' the Gryffindor boy blinked his eyes open. 'Finn… what is it?'

Finn snapped backwards, away from Tyler's sleeping bag, and jerked his arm out towards what Tyler assumed would still be the empty frame of the window on the chapel's opposite wall. 'Ty, the window, look, the window… just look at it!'

Tyler blinked again, before suddenly snapping into consciousness as his eyes swum into focus. 'What the hell?!'

'Silence!' the rasping voice of a heavy grey apparition cut through the howl of the January gale, echoing back at the two boys from an over-large grotesque head as it leered beyond the window frame, straining to pass through but never managing to force itself to do so.

'Tregeagle...' Tyler whispered.

Finn's face drained of its colour, and his eyes bugged wide as his gaze shifted from his friend's face to the hostile spirit and back again. 'Crap, it's real...'

Tyler reached out a hand, bracing himself against the uneven stonework behind him before forcing himself to stand up. 'Jan Tregeagle,' he stammered, before clearing his throat and repeating himself. 'Jan Tregeagle. What do you want from us?'

'I want you out!' the voice snarled. 'How dare you invade my chapel, this twelfth night of all nights?'

'We mean no ill,' Tyler tried to reason, even as his friend's mouth dropped ever wider beside him. 'I am a friend of Joshua, your youngest heir, and of those who stood alongside him, against the Wild Hunt when it returned last summer.' Tyler grabbed Finn around the shoulder, pulling his friend close. 'We are not your enemies.'

'Then why do you disrespect the memory of the dead,' Tregeagle hollered, 'and trespass within my chapel on my final night of liberty?'

'We meant no offence,' Tyler repeated, the strength in his voice dropping away.

'Come on, Ty,' Finn whispered. 'Let's go. Please.'

Tyler nodded. 'Yeah,' he murmured, feeling his heartbeat hammer against his chest. 'We apologise for any harm we have done,' he raised his voice again. 'Goodnight, Jan. Jacob and Joshua send their best wishes.'

'Goodnight, children of the moor,' the spirit's features twisted into a satisfied sneer, 'and know that the blood of your enemy sleeps within the castle.' The apparition funnelled upwards, twisting around upon itself before vanishing into the cold night as the sound of the gusting winds filled its silence.

'B… Blood?' Finn stammered. 'Castle?'

'Ignore it, Finn,' Tyler held an arm around his friend's shoulders, shaking him back into the moment. 'Come on, mate. You can sleep at mine.'


	14. Europe

The last carriage of the early-morning train from the far west of Cornwall was almost empty as it rumbled its way along the south coast, winding over the old bridge outside Plymouth before turning inland to hug the outline of Dartmoor as it approached Newton Abbot station.

Tyler looked up as the train slowed down, unsticking his blond fringe from the murky window, and peering into the morning half-light to catch sight of a familiar face. He breathed a sigh of relief as he noticed Greg returning his casual wave on the platform edge, before the Slytherin boy clambered aboard the carriage, with his housemate, Matthew, close behind.

'Hey, Ty,' the second-year greeted the younger boy as he sat down opposite him. 'Good holiday?'

'Yeah,' Tyler nodded. 'You?'

'Yeah!' Greg grinned, broadly. 'Cape Town's amazing!'

'Spare us,' Matthew rolled his eyes. 'Thirty degrees Celsius, sun every day… we were lucky if it was thirty bloody Fahrenheit here!'

Tyler laughed.

'Seriously,' Matthew continued, 'if I hear any more stories about penguins, beaches or rugby then I'm going to curse his mouth shut for the rest of the week. I spent my holiday doing OWL revision.'

'Ouch,' the first-year acknowledged, his voice quietening sympathetically. 'Anyway,' he changed the subject quickly, taking a deep breath as the train pulled away, 'I saw Tregeagle yesterday.'

'Josh?' Greg checked.

'No,' Tyler shook his head. 'Jan.'

Greg fell instantly quiet.

'W… what?' Matthew asked. ' _Jan_ Tregeagle? How?'

'Well,' Tyler hesitated, playing for a moment's time as he tried to work out what he would say. 'You know I live in Roche, right? And you know the legends about Tregeagle and the rock? Well, my friend Finn, he dared us to sleep out on the rock last night, in the old abandoned chapel, and that's where we saw him… well, his ghost, anyway.'

Greg whistled.

'That's not all, though,' Tyler continued, 'he said, he said… he said that _the blood of your enemy sleeps within the castle_.'

'Your enemy,' Matthew repeated, 'or ours?'

Tyler shrugged. 'I don't know. He said " _your enemy"_ , those were his exact words, so it could mean anything... I don't know what,' his voice dropped. 'I mean, I don't really have any enemies, do I? There's the others in my year in Gryffindor…'

'Vittles and Lawton?' Greg baulked. 'Those little tossers?' he shook his head. 'They don't count as enemies, they're too thick for that... and besides, we know they sleep in the castle anyway.'

'Who else could it be, then?' Tyler asked.

'Well, it's not likely to be anyone we know about already,' Matthew argued, 'or it would be obvious. There's nothing else for us to go on either, is there? Nothing serious has really happened this year, not since the Wild Hunt came back…'

'Not to us,' Greg contradicted his friend, 'but try asking Glyn.'

'The kelpie?' Matthew questioned.

Greg nodded. 'You try telling him that nothing serious has happened this year when his little brother nearly got killed.'

'Fair enough,' the older boy acknowledged.

'So what's our enemy, then?' Tyler persisted. 'A kelpie? How does that work? How could its blood sleep within the castle?'

'Not the kelpie,' Greg shook his head, 'that was just a magical creature, a monster. It's probably dead now, and I doubt it ever knew we existed anyway… it can't have been _our_ enemy.'

'Maybe…' Tyler hesitated, 'maybe it's whoever sent the kelpie, then?'

'The blood of your enemy sleeps within the castle,' Matthew repeated the spirit's warning. 'So, if that's what it means, then maybe whoever sent the kelpie, maybe they've got kids who go to Hogwarts?'

Greg nodded, slowly. 'Maybe, yeah,' he agreed. 'So I guess we'd better watch out.'

The train soon left the West Country behind, switching the twisting tracks that hugged the base of the sandstone cliffs along the coastline for the wider, straighter rails of the mainline into London. It was an awkward transfer along the length of Paddington station to find the underground line that would take the boys around to King's Cross and the waiting express, but the three children found themselves on Platform 9¾ in ample time to stake out one of the larger compartments on the waiting Hogwarts Express, and await the arrival of their closest friends. Oscar Symons, the other Slytherin fifth-year, was the first to join them, before Theo, Lucas and Isaac quickly followed. Leif Ulriksson and Seb Burns completed the Slytherin contingent, before the Hufflepuff trio of Cameron Ollerton, Jai Clarke and Glyndwr Jones filled the last of the dozen seats.

As a sharp whistle and a cloud of steam signalled the carriages' imminent departure, Greg decided it was time for Tyler to share his news.

The first-year blinked, stunned by the older boy's sudden announcement. 'W… well…' he stammered. 'It… it wasn't really much,' he stumbled over his words, before deciding that he would be best served by retelling the whole story as quickly as possible. 'Last night, one of my friends from home dared me to spend the night sleeping in the chapel on Roche Rock with him, so we did, but we got woken up in the middle of the night by the ghost of Jan Tregeagle, and he said, he said that _the blood of your enemy sleeps within the castle_ …'

The compartment fell silent for a long moment, only to be broken by a sudden eruption from Glyn. 'Oh, for Merlin's sake!' he shouted. 'Can't we go for one bloody term without crap like this happening to us?' the twelve-year-old stood up, wrenching the compartment door open before letting it slam behind him as he stormed into the corridor.

Tyler paled. 'W… What did I say…?'

'It's not your fault, mate.' Theo, sitting next to Tyler, put a hand on the first-year's shoulder.

'Cam…?' Greg began. 'Jai…?'

'I don't know,' Jai, a mixed-race boy with caramel brown skin and dark hair, shook his head. 'He hasn't told me anything about the holidays.'

'Me neither,' added Cameron.

Greg sighed. 'I'll go and talk to him,' he decided. 'Unless anyone else wants to go?' His eyes flickered briefly around the carriage, before quickly realising that none of the others were about to volunteer, and following the Welsh boy from the compartment.

As it turned out, Glyn hadn't gone far. Greg found his friend a handful of yards from the doorway, leaning against a half-open window and feeling the rush of the cold January air against his face.

'Glyn…'

'What?'

Greg hesitated. 'Nothing,' he swallowed. 'I just…' he sighed. 'What's up, mate? The way you reacted just then, to what Ty just said…' he took a breath. 'You pretty much freaked everyone out.'

Glyn turned round, shoving the window shut behind him, revealing two reddened eyes. 'It was when he mentioned blood,' the Hufflepuff murmured, and Greg suddenly understood his friend's overreaction.

'The Blood of Merlin,' Greg whispered, and Glyn nodded. 'I didn't think about that…'

'It's okay,' Glyn rubbed the back of his arm across his face. 'There's no reason why you should have.' He tried to force a smile.

'We'll work it out, Glyn,' Greg insisted. 'Same as we worked out the Wild Hunt last year.'

Glyn nodded.

'Do you want me to tell the others…?' Greg ventured, but Glyn shook his head.

'It's my problem,' he decided. 'I've got to get used to dealing with it. Come on.' The Hufflepuff rubbed his arm across his eyes once more, before leading his friend back to the still-quiet compartment and beginning his apology. 'Sorry, guys,' he announced, once Greg had shut the carriage door behind him. 'Sorry, Ty. I shouldn't have gone off on one like that. It was just when you said "blood", I started thinking about all of the "blood of Merlin" crap…' he shook his head. 'Sorry.'

Tyler blushed. 'It's okay,' he murmured. 'Do… do you have any idea what it might mean? I thought it might have something to do with whoever sent the kelpie. Matthew said it might mean they have kids who go to Hogwarts…?'

Glyn shook his head. 'I have no idea,' he admitted. 'That's so random… it could mean anything. Maybe it has something to do with the people who stayed for the holidays at Hogwarts? Maybe it just means you're going to argue with Tom or Morgan?'

Tyler shrugged. 'Maybe,' he acknowledged, 'but I don't think so…'

'We'll find out,' Greg repeated the assertion he'd made to Glyn in private. 'I'm sure we will. So it's not worth worrying about now, is it? Haven't we got anything else to talk about?'

'How about the holidays?' Theo piped up, immediately. 'Me and Greg went to Cape Town,' he pulled up the sleeve of his jumper. 'Greg thinks he got a better tan than me, but I don't, look…' he showed his sun-browned forearm. 'Come on, Greg…'

Reluctantly, Greg copied his friend, revealing his arm and holding it next to Theo's. 'Mine's fading now…'

'Theo's is better,' Jai decided, 'but it's not as good as mine!' he pulled his own sleeve up, holding his arm beside the other boys'.

'That's not fair!' Theo protested. 'That's not a tan! You're half-Indian!'

'So?' Jai's grin widened. 'That just means you'll go white again after two weeks in freezing cold Scotland and I won't!'

'Shut up, Jai!' Theo stuck his tongue out, but none of the boys in the carriage minded the light-hearted argument, as the tension that had followed Glyn's outburst faded away into a comparison of holiday activities.

'I suppose you could go to Iceland if you wanted to make sure you didn't get sunburnt,' Oscar suggested, a few minutes into a lively discussion about the best holiday destination. 'Isn't that right, Leif?'

The Icelandic boy shrugged. 'We hardly get any sun at all in December,' he pointed out.

'Or July,' Oscar rolled his eyes.

'Hey!' Leif took the bait. 'It is sunny sometimes!'

Oscar laughed. 'I must have just been unlucky when we visited, right?' he grinned. 'How was your holiday, mate?'

'Alright,' Leif shrugged. He was probably the quietest of the boys in the carriage, and happy to listen in to the others' discussion of their holiday without sharing his own.

'No weird supernatural crap like Ty?' Matthew asked, tongue firmly in cheek, only to be taken by surprise by the eleven-year-old's reply.

'Actually…' the first-year murmured. 'There was something.' Leif swallowed, blushing as he realised that the other boys in the compartment had turned to face him. 'Just after New Year's… there was this story in the newspaper, saying some sailors had seen, had seen a Hrosshvalur.'

Cameron was the first to ask the question that was on all of the others' minds. 'What… what's a Ross Valya?'

'Hrosshvalur,' Leif repeated, stressing the "H" at the front of the creature's name. 'It means "horse-whale". It's meant to be just a legend… and I never thought it could be true when I was growing up, but now I've discovered Hogwarts, and found out that loads of things that I thought were imaginary are actually real, I wondered if this might be, too…'

Oscar exhaled, slowly. 'The Hrosshvalur?' he took as much care as he could over his attempt at the Icelandic. 'What can you tell us about it?

'Well,' he mumbled, 'there are a lot of stories about the illhveli… that means "evil whales". There are supposed to be about nine or ten different kinds, and all of them are huge. Even the smallest are meant to be bigger than most sailing ships, and they all love death and destruction, sinking any ships that go near them. The stories go back to Viking times, but that's all I thought they were, that's all anyone thought…'

'Like the Wild Hunt,' Greg observed, grimly.

'And Roche Rock,' Tyler added.

Leif shuddered. 'Do you think they're real, then?' he whispered.

'Who knows?' Greg asked. 'If some of the things we've seen can be real, then so could anything.'

'Like Water Leapers…' Theo murmured.

Tyler blinked. 'Water Leapers?'

'Yeah,' Isaac laughed. 'A cross between a bat and a frog with a lizard's tail and a stinger that stops you breathing…'

'Ugh,' Tyler shivered. 'I don't want to meet one of them any time soon,' he decided.

'They're second year Defence,' Isaac told him. 'Diffindo's the spell you need. Their skin's not very thick, so if you get it right then it just cuts straight through.'

Tyler nodded. 'Remind me next year…'

'You'll be fine, Ty,' Oscar assured him. 'It's funny you should mention that story, though, Leif, cause there was something on the news a couple of days ago about someone seeing a big cat round Burnham Beeches… I was wondering, you don't think that might be magical in some way, do you? A kneazle or something…?'

Matthew snorted. 'I doubt it, mate,' he shook his head. 'Kneazles aren't _that_ big… it's probably just escaped from a zoo or something. People are always on about there being a "Beast of Dartmoor" loose round Chudleigh, but it's probably just a puma or something like that.'

' _Just_ a puma…?' Tyler echoed.

Matthew grinned. 'Mate, you and me both know there are hundred things in our world that are way scarier than a big cat.'

'Whatever,' Oscar interrupted. 'Something's not right, if there's kelpies and evil whales on the prowl then there's got to be something up, hasn't there?'

'Yeah,' Glyn spoke up. 'Me and Dad and Iestyn went walking in the hills and woods round Harlech over Christmas, and it felt… it felt different to normal, like all the animals were acting different, like they were all tense…'

'Sure it wasn't just the presence of the Heir of Merlin?' Isaac teased.

Glyn rolled his eyes. 'Piss off, Zac,' he shook his head. 'That's not funny.'

'Yeah,' Oscar backed up the Hufflepuff. 'That's over the line right now, mate. Anyway,' he subtly changed the subject. 'You guys get to make your options choices this year, don't you? You'll get to do a few taster lessons this term. If you get CMC, you could ask Hagrid if he's noticed anything. If not, we will.'

'CMC…?' Tyler blinked, confused.

Oscar smiled. 'Care of Magical Creatures, Ty,' he explained. 'You get to choose two or three extra subjects in third year. That's one of them…'

The boys' discussion drifted towards talk of the magical curriculum as the train wound up through the ever-wilder uplands of Britain, drawing in to Hogsmeade station come evening. Come nightfall, however, Glyn couldn't shake the nagging thought of Merlin from his mind. Even by midnight, the twelve-year-old was no closer to sleeping.

The second-year Hufflepuff boys were split across two dormitories, and Glyn shared his room with Cameron and Jai, both of whom were now fast asleep in beds on opposite sides of the room. There was another bunk in the fourth corner of the dorm, but it had lain empty since the boys had started at Hogwarts, and though Glyn's mind registered surprise at the sight of a trunk at its foot as he made his way from the room, he thought no more of it.

The Basement's common room was almost deserted, and as Glyn emerged from the low tunnel that led from the dormitories, he thought for a moment that the room was indeed empty. The snatch of a quiet conversation in a pair of armchairs beside a glowing fireplace proved him wrong, however, and Glyn padded slowly towards the other pupils. He was close enough to slip onto a third chair by the time that the older voice recognised him.

'Glyn,' Dan Buckley, Quidditch commentator, prefect and Head Boy, acknowledged the second-year. 'Alright?'

The twelve-year-old shrugged. 'Sort of,' he mumbled. 'Can't sleep.'

Buckley nodded. 'Fair enough. Wouldn't be up here if you could, would you?'

Glyn rolled his eyes. 'That's as bad as one of Beretta's jokes…'

'Ouch!' the prefect laughed, full of mock outrage. 'It wasn't great, mate, I'll give you that much, but it wasn't _that_ bad, was it?' he shook his head, before gesturing to the boy in the other seat. 'Have you met Benoît?'

Glyn blinked. 'Benoît?'

Buckley inhaled, sharply. 'He's new,' he summarised, bluntly. 'Your year, I think. His parents have just moved here from France and they wanted him to move to Hogwarts as well, rather than staying on at Beauxbatons.'

'Oh,' the twelve-year-old stuttered, turning to face the new arrival. Benoît was short for his age, though still taller than Cameron, with wavy blond hair that almost reached his shoulders, where the mixture of tan and freckles in between the loops of a vest suggested his Christmas had been spent further afield than Europe. 'Hi, Benoît,' he offered. ' _Salut_. When were you sorted?'

The French boy stayed quiet, staring instead into the flickering flames of the fireplace, and the prefect answered on his behalf. 'Not long ago, I think. McGonagall just called me to her office to meet him and bring him back to the basement.'

Glyn nodded, slowly putting clues together in his mind. 'There's a trunk… next to the spare bed in our dorm… I guess he must…'

'Yeah,' Buckley confirmed. 'Hey, Benoît? You hear that? You're in the same dorm as Glyn here. _Tu vas dormir dans la même chamber que lui_.'

Benoît grunted.

The Head Boy shrugged. 'Who else is in your dorm, mate?'

'Cam and Jai.'

'I don't suppose either of them speak French, do they?'

Glyn raised his eyebrows. 'What do _you_ think? Jai speaks Hindi, and Cam…' he hesitated. 'I think Cam has enough trouble with English to be honest…'

Buckley laughed. 'I guess it's down to you, then. What's your French like?'

Glyn sighed. 'Okay, I guess. We go there quite a bit in summer, cause of the Harpies doing pre-season Quidditch and things like that.'

'Quidditch?' Benoît's expression brightened at the mention of the sport. ' _Tu aimes_? You… like?'

The twelve-year-old nodded. 'My mum is Harpies captain… _Ma mère est leur capitaine._ '

Benoît's eyes widened, and a grin spread across the French boy's face. 'Wow! Cool!' he pushed himself up in the chair. ' _J'aime_ … I like QC Toulouse!'

Buckley smiled. 'You know what? I think you guys might get along just fine. I'll leave you to it. Glyn, you know where I am if you need me.'

Glyn nodded. 'Night, Dan.'

'Goodnight,' Benoît echoed, before taking a deep, measured breath, and continuing his reply slowly and carefully as he chose his words in an unfamiliar language. 'Thank you for speaking French for me. Now, can I practise my English? I know that all our classes are English.'

'Yes,' Glyn felt wave of sympathy for the other boy, even as part of his mind remembered the suspicions that Iestyn held about the new arrival at Ysgol Castell Harlech.

Benoît smiled. 'Thank you,' he took another breath. 'I was… not happy when my father said I was moving schools. I was not knowing if I would have any friends.'

Glyn nodded. 'I think you will. I have made some amazing friends here. Not just in Hufflepuff, but in Slytherin as well.'

'Slytherin? _Mais… est que c'est…_ ' Benoît blinked, before correcting his instinctive French. 'That is… Voldemort?'

Glyn swallowed. 'Voldemort was a Slytherin, yes,' the twelve-year-old answered, 'but my friends are muggle-born… um… _né moldu_.'

'Oh,' Benoît relaxed.

'Why have your parents moved here?' Glyn knew his question was awkward, but equally that it was one which the other pupils would be keen to hear answered.

Benoît shrunk back into his armchair again, looking away from Glyn.

'Everyone will want to know,' the Welsh boy pointed out, 'and even if you don't tell them the truth, you need an answer, or they'll keep asking.'

'Yes…' Benoît realised the truth of Glyn's words, nodding slowly as he steeled himself to reply. 'Do you know what is a guivre?'

Glyn shook his head.

'It is like a dragon, but not as big. My parents, they worked with guivres in a reserve, in the Pyrenees mountains. They said there was something wrong, but nobody listened, and then, they… they were attacked… and… and…' his eyes started to redden as his sentence tailed off. 'They do not trust the French Ministry any more.'

Glyn exhaled. If this was an alibi, the suspicious voice at the back of his mind said, then it was an incredibly convincing one. 'Sorry…' the twelve-year-old murmured. 'I think you should just tell people that your parents changed jobs.'

' _Oui_ ,' Benoît lapsed back into French, but Glyn didn't correct him, and the common room slipped back into silence that was only broken as the new arrival yawned.

'Shall I show you the dorm?' Glyn asked, eager to escape the thoughts that were linking Benoît's story, Leif's tales and his own experiences during the break, and the French boy nodded. 'It's not far,' Glyn explained, getting to his feet, 'and it's really comfortable. I hope you like it.'

'Me too,' Benoît forced a tired smile, following the Welsh boy back to the second-years' room. ' _Bonne nuit, Glyn…_ '

'Night, Ben.'


	15. The Mark of Merlin

'Why would I want to take Ancient Runes?' Theo shook his head as Greg raised the idea in the Slytherin common room the following morning. 'Isn't that just gonna be like History of Magic, but in a language we can't even read?'

Isaac laughed. 'Pretty much.'

Greg rolled his eyes. 'What are you going to take then, Theo?'

'Magical Creatures.'

'And what else…?' Greg persisted. 'You've got to take two, remember.'

'Well, what are the other choices?' Theo asked. 'Apart from Ancient Runes?'

'Divination,' Greg answered, 'and I think the other one's Arithmancy,' he added. 'What is that, anyway? Lukey?'

Lucas sighed. 'Something to do with numbers and patterns, forecasting the future. Ask Glyn,' he suggested. 'His dad's an arithmancer.'

'So Maths, right?' Greg summarised.

Theo shook his head. 'I guess I'm taking Divination, then!'

'Really?' Lucas checked. 'Divination? That load of old crap? Are you serious?'

Theo shrugged.

'At least come to the trial lessons, mate,' Greg suggested. 'How can you take a subject for three years without trying it? You never knew what any of our subjects were going to be before first year; I bet you couldn't have guessed which ones were going to be your favourites.'

'Yeah, I guess,' Theo nodded.

'Good,' the other blond smiled. 'I don't know which ones I want to do yet,' he admitted. 'Probably not Divination, Lukey,' he pre-empted his friend's complaint, 'but I'm still going to the trial lessons.'

Lucas snorted. 'Whatever. Just don't complain to me when you waste an hour of your life!'

'You'll just be in the library, anyway,' Isaac joked.

Lucas stuck his tongue out.

'Real mature, Lukey,' Theo laughed, only to look up and away as the sound of footsteps on the spiral staircase alerted the second-years to the arrival of further company. 'Hey, Morgan,' he greeted the younger boy. 'Alright, mate? Good Christmas?'

The first-year nodded. 'Yeah,' he crossed the common room, joining his older friends, with Thomas and Leif following close behind.

'Didn't you miss playing rugby?'

'Not really,' Morgan shook his head. 'We played some here… me and Josh and Tom. Josh knew the rules, cause he was at that summer camp when we first met, and Tom went to a muggle primary school so he knew a bit too.'

Theo smiled. 'I guess that meant he could actually use that old red base layer for what it was meant for.'

Morgan noticed Thomas' involuntary shiver as the second-year mentioned his ever-present undershirt. 'He's going to come to my house at Easter,' the boy continued, 'and then he's going to get a proper rugby shirt to go with it.'

'Cool,' Greg acknowledged. 'You spend much time with Josh?'

'Yeah,' Morgan nodded. 'Quite a lot. Up in Gryffindor Tower, too. It's pretty cool up there… I mean, not as good as the dungeons, of course…'

Greg laughed. 'Good save, mate,' he smiled.

'How was South Africa?' the first-year returned the question.

'Awesome,' the older boy smiled. 'Hot and sunny every day, amazing food, beaches half an hour away…'

'Alright!' Isaac interrupted. 'We know!'

Theo grinned. 'I'll tell you later, Morgan. We did a load of rugby stuff, too, learned some new moves and calls…'

'I can't believe that you asked about the "99",' Greg shook his head, 'or that it was even real!'

'The "99"?' Isaac echoed. 'What's the "99"?'

'It was something the British Lions used on tour in South Africa, in 1974,' Theo began to explain. 'They knew that South Africa would play dirty, and try and get Lions players sent off by ganging up on them, so the Lions captain decided that if he shouted "99", then every Lions player would join the fight… cause there was no way the referee would send them _all_ off.'

'That's like Ty said, isn't it?' Thomas summed it up in a sentence. 'One and all.'

Theo nodded. 'Yeah,' he confirmed, 'but they only used it once. I think it was more to put South Africa off than anything else, in the end.'

'How come you know all that?' Isaac asked.

'London Welsh,' Morgan answered for the older boy. 'That was when we were one of the best teams in England…'

'Yeah,' Theo reflected, morosely, 'not near the bottom of National 1, losing at home to bloody Moseley!'

Greg smiled. 'If you can remember all that, mate,' he pointed out, 'then you could probably do _all_ the options…'

'If all the options were as much fun as rugby, then I might want to!'

Over in Gryffindor Tower, Tyler had stumbled upon the chance for Joshua to hear the story about Roche Rock. 'J… Josh,' the eleven-year stammered, arriving in the common room to discover that the second-year was the only other boy to have ventured downstairs.

'Ty?' the older boy looked up. 'You alright?' he checked. 'Vittles and Lawton not bothering you again, are they?'

'N… no,' Tyler shook his head. 'I need to tell you something.'

Joshua nodded, gesturing towards the armchair alongside him. 'Okay,' he acknowledged. 'Come on then, mate, sit down. What's up?'

Tyler took a deep breath. 'It's not about me,' he insisted. 'I'm fine. I swear it. It's about you…'

Joshua's eyes widened. 'What?'

'On Friday night,' the first-year murmured, 'one of my friends dared me to spend the night on Roche Rock,' he recalled, 'and we saw Jan… Jan Tregeagle.' Tyler shivered. 'Well, his ghost, at least.'

Joshua's face slowly turned pale. 'Jan…?' he stammered. 'Are you sure…?'

Tyler nodded. 'I promise, Josh.'

Joshua shut his eyes, and Tyler fell quiet as he waited for the second-year to say anything more.

'Who else have you told?'

'The Slytherins,' the first-year answered, simply. 'On the train here,' he swallowed. 'He said… he told me, _the blood of your enemy sleeps within the castle_.'

Joshua whistled. 'Who's your enemy?'

Tyler shook his head. 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'I don't think I have one, really, I mean… Vittles and Lawton don't count, do they?'

'I'm not sure if those two _can_ count…' Joshua smirked.

Tyler laughed. 'Seriously, though,' he exhaled. 'We talked about it on the train, and we thought… we thought it might have something to do with the kelpie that went after Glyn's little brother, that they might be the enemy, and they might be related to someone at Hogwarts.'

Joshua nodded. 'I guess that makes sense,' he murmured. 'I should probably go and talk to Dad.' The second-year stood up, making his way to the common room door, before pausing as he pushed the panel open. 'Ty…?'

'Yeah?'

'Are you coming?'

The blond boy blinked. 'Me?' he checked. 'I thought…'

'You were the one who saw him, weren't you?' the older boy confirmed. 'Come on!' he grinned, leading the other Gryffindor boy along the winding route through the castle corridors to his father's bedroom. The door was already ajar as the children arrived, and Joshua pushed it further open. 'Dad…?'

Jacob Tregeagle looked up from an armchair that sat inside the shafts of light that the low morning sun cast through the room's bay window. 'Joshua?' his eyes narrowed. 'and…?'

The second-year swallowed. 'This is Ty, Tyler Barton. He's a first-year, and he's from Roche in Cornwall, and last night… not last night,' he corrected himself, 'the night before last, he saw the ghost of Jan Tregeagle.'

The man snapped upright. 'What have I told you about meddling with things you don't understand, Joshua?'

'Dad, I didn't!' Joshua protested. ' _He_ saw it, so like you said, I've come and told you! What else do you expect me to do?'

'And how, pray tell, does a first-year, a _muggle-born_ first-year, know enough about the Wild Hunt to drag you into it again?'

Joshua reddened. 'He's my friend…'

'Is that enough to risk your life?' the man raised his voice as Tyler edged backwards into the frame of the doorway.

'My friends saved my life last year!' Joshua countered with his own shout. 'And yours too! Neither of us would be here if it wasn't for them!'

'Dumb luck, as I hear it!' Jacob snarled. 'Just because you got away with playing with fire once, that doesn't mean you won't get your fingers burnt, boy!'

Joshua shivered. 'What else do you want me to do…?' he protested.

'Stay out of it!' the man snapped. 'Leave it to people who know what they are doing! Your mother didn't die for you to throw your life away playing the hero!'

'I'm not playing the hero,' Joshua's voice fell away. 'I'm just sticking up for my friends, and I'm not ditching them now. Not for you. Not for anyone!' his breathing hurried as he turned on his heel, slamming the door behind him. 'Come on, Ty,' he brushed past the first-year. 'Let's go to breakfast.'

There were only a small number of pupils in the Great Hall as Joshua and Tyler arrived for breakfast, but the Slytherin boys were amongst them, and the combination of Morgan's beckoning and Thomas' encouragement was enough to persuade the two Gryffindors to join their table.

'Hey, Josh,' Theo greeted the older boy, who only grunted an acknowledgement.

'Alright, Ty?' Morgan smiled as the other first-year sat down opposite him.

Tyler nodded slowly. 'I guess,' he murmured.

'Josh?' Greg asked again, noticing the older Gryffindor had barely looked above his own ankles. 'Ty, what's up?'

The first-year sighed. 'I told Josh,' he explained, simply. 'About what happened… and…' he tailed off, glancing nervously towards his housemate.

'I told Dad,' Joshua admitted, 'and he told me… he told me…' his voice tailed off before he gathered his breath and steeled himself to go on. 'He told me that my mum didn't die for me to throw my life away playing the hero.'

'What?' Isaac snapped.

'Zac!' Greg kicked his friend under the table. 'Shush!'

Joshua nodded a brief acknowledgement towards the blond Slytherin.

'I'm sorry, Josh…' Tyler couldn't stand the silence any longer. 'I… I…'

'Stop it, Ty,' Joshua cut the younger boy's apology off. 'It's not your fault,' he exhaled. 'I guess it's just like last year, then. It's down to us.'

Before the workload of the new term's classes and homework grew too demanding, the second-years also had the chance to experience first-hand the optional classes that the next school year would offer.

Greg had managed to persuade Theo and Lucas to join him in the tiny Ancient Runes classroom the following morning, but in a room filled with Ravenclaws, Glyn's late arrival meant that the Welsh boy was left sharing a table with two children from the blue and bronze house.

Greg turned around as his friend sat down on the table behind him. 'Alright, Glyn?'

'Yeah,' the Hufflepuff nodded. 'Just finished late in Herbology, that's all.'

'Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,' a tuneful, almost choral voice brought an end to the two boys' conversation before it had really begun, as a tall, grey-haired witch entered the circular room through an arched doorway on the opposite wall to the children's entrance. 'I am Professor Aramis de Beaufort. Good morning, and welcome to the Study of Ancient Runes.'

'Good morning,' the room echoed back.

'Good to see you all,' the witch continued, 'and a pleasure to see so much interest in Ancient Runes. It's a fascinating subject, rich in history and culture; one that links the magical world of today with the one in which our ancestors grew up many centuries ago. It takes us back to a time before the modern Latin alphabet, to a language of symbols and mystery.'

Glyn looked around his table, noticing that one of the two Ravenclaw boys had already taken out a quill and parchment to note down the teacher's words.

'Now,' de Beaufort continued, 'who can tell me anything about the Runic alphabet?'

'Isn't it Viking?' the other Ravenclaw boy on Glyn's table spoke up. 'Old Norse?'

The Professor nodded an acknowledgement to the white-blond second year. 'By popular wisdom, indeed it is,' she confirmed, 'but the origins of the _Futhark_ go further back in time, through the Saxon era and back into the age of the Romano-Celts.'

'Futhark…?' a handful of boys murmured an echo of the unfamiliar word.

'The Runic Alphabet is also known as the Futhark,' de Beaufort took a piece of chalk and began to draw symbols on a blackboard. 'ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚲ. Fehu, Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz, Raidho, Kaunan. Futhark.'

Glyn watched the dark-haired Ravenclaw copy the runic letters painstakingly onto his parchment.

'It was used from the second through to the ninth century across northern and western parts of Europe, before being superseded by the Latin script that we still use today. Unlike the Latin alphabet, however, the letters of the runic alphabet also have their own meanings, and deeper associations with the Old Magic.'

'The four elements…' Glyn murmured.

The blond boy on the Hufflepuff's table looked up sharply. 'The four elements?' he echoed. 'Earth, air, fire and water?'

The professor's interest piqued as she overheard the boy's suggestion. 'Yes, Mr…'

'Fawcett,' he replied.

'Five points to Ravenclaw, Mr Fawcett,' de Beaufort acknowledged, 'for your excellent knowledge.'

Edward Fawcett swallowed, looking down at his feet as Glyn stared daggers across the table at him. 'It wasn't my idea,' the Ravenclaw mumbled, nodding across the table towards Glyn. 'He thought of it first.'

'Five points to Hufflepuff as well, then,' the teacher smiled, and Glyn's fierce expression softened.

'Thanks,' Glyn whispered,

Edward nodded. 'It's okay. It was your idea.'

'So, if the letters… runes… can mean two different things,' Greg raised his voice, 'how can you tell which it is?'

The teacher turned to face the Slytherins. 'An excellent question, and I am afraid the answer is not always a straightforward one. Often, it is not possible to tell from the runes alone what is being implied, but rather one must deduce the meaning from the rest of the sentence,' she paused. 'There are, indeed, further runes, whose origins lie beyond the Futhark, which contain further meanings still. For instance, the rune known by many as the Mark of Merlin…'

De Beaufort drew out another two runes on the chalkboard, before combining them into a third.. 'Mannaz, and Ehwaz. Together, Myrddin Emrys, the original Celtic name of one of the most famous sorcerers ever to have lived.'

Glyn gasped, copying the image, two vertical lines joined by the uppermost parts of a zigzag lattice, down onto his parchment.

'Professor…' he stammered. 'That mark, the Mark of Merlin… what does it mean?'

'Many scholars have argued over that question, young man,' de Beaufort replied. 'The speculation ranges from a mere name-tag through to a symbol which, if carved correctly, holds within it some fraction of the great wizard's power. Many frauds and charlatans have claimed to carry the Mark of Merlin over time, but more often it is a result of a branding iron and rather too much firewhisky…'

Glyn had no hesitation in telling his friends what he had thought of the starter lesson as they made their way from the room. 'That was amazing,' he gushed. 'De Beaufort knows about Old Welsh Magic, and the Four Elements. If there's any lesson where I'm going to find out what's happening to me, it's that one!'

Greg nodded. 'Yeah,' he agreed. 'Count me in, too, mate. We're just going to have to put up with a room full of Ravenclaws.'

The Welsh boy shrugged. 'The guys on my table were alright. Edward and Alastair. They helped me with the translation we were doing.'

'That translation was hard…' Lucas noted.

'Hard?' Theo interrupted. 'It was impossible! I can see why you want to take it, guys, but it would make my brain explode if I had to do that every week!'

Greg laughed. 'I guess we'd better try and make friends with those Ravenclaws then!'

There was another opportunity to explore one of the third-year lessons a couple of days later, as the boys headed out to the grounds for their first taste of the Care of Magical Creatures, although the January weather did not make it an enticing walk from the warmth of the castle.

'Hey, Glyn,' Greg blew onto his gloved hands as he greeted his friend. 'Not warm, is it?'

'I'm from Snowdonia. I'm used to this, and worse,' Glyn smiled. 'I know what you mean though, mate. None of the others are coming. Just me and Ben,' he introduced the French boy to the Slytherins.

' _Bonjour_ ,' Greg managed a smile, exhaling a cloud of water vapour into the cold air. 'I'm sorry, I don't know any more French.'

'Okay,' Benoît nodded.

'His English is pretty good,' Glyn added on his friend's behalf. 'As long as you speak slowly he can understand.'

Isaac grinned. 'Just like Theo, then?'

'Piss off, Zac!' Theo shivered. 'A week ago I was on a beach in Cape Town,' he muttered. 'Now I'm freezing my arse off on a hill in Scotland. This better be worth it.'

'I hope so,' Greg agreed, pulling the hood of his coat more tightly around his head. 'This is where we're meant to meet, isn't it? Hagrid's Hut?'

'Yeah,' Isaac nodded. 'Do you think anyone else is coming from the other houses?' he asked, glancing around. 'It'll be too cold for the Ravenclaws to leave their precious books alone, won't it… I thought Ciaran or Josh might have come, though. Maybe they've already made their minds up, like Lucas.'

Greg shrugged. 'Josh has got enough on at the minute,' he answered, 'and anyway, look, you're wrong. One Ravenclaw's managed to leave his books alone for long enough to come down here.' The twelve-year-old pointed towards the winding steps of the footpath that let from the castle itself down to the shadow of the groundskeeper's hut.

'Hey, Edward,' Glyn greeted the boy whom he'd shared a table with during Ancient Runes.

'I think it's too cold for it to speak, though,' Isaac grinned as the Ravenclaw failed to reply. 'I bet it misses the warmth of the library…'

'Shut up, Zac,' Greg elbowed his friend in the ribs, but before either boy could say anything else they were distracted by the creak of the wide door that led to Hagrid's Hut.

'Alrigh', boys?' The large man pushed the doorway wide open. 'Well, what are yeh waitin' for? Come in, come in, keep yehselves warm!'

'Thank you, Hagrid,' Glyn answered for the six boys, leading the group of children into the squat building.

'Hello there, Glyndwr,' the half-giant's accent rolled around the Welsh vowels with ease. 'Hoped I'd be seein' you here. Not many others, mind?'

Glyn shook his head. 'It's too cold, I think,' he offered. 'I know some of the other Hufflepuffs are interested, Cam for sure…'

Hagrid nodded. 'We'll have ter do this again, I reckon. In the Summer, d'yeh think?'

'Yeah,' Glyn agreed, his eyes darting around the cluttered hut, before his eyes settled on a cylindrical cage in one corner. 'Hey, is that the same Augurey I found last year…?'

'Yeh,' Hagrid shifted his bulk towards the cage, unfastening the metal catch and releasing a dumpy, grey bird that hopped gamely onto his wide hand. 'He's well enough now, alrigh', but he don't wan' ter go anywhere, do yeh?'

The bird squawked, jumping from Hagrid's had down to the old floorboards and shuffling across the cottage floor towards Glyn, who held his hands out for the creature to jump up.

'What… what is it?' Theo blinked.

'It's an Augurey,' Glyn answered easily. 'I found it last year, out by the lake, when it was only a baby, and I didn't know what to do with it, so I took it to Hagrid's.'

'An' he's growing' up now,' the teacher added. 'Look, his feathers are startin' to turn green. Jus' don't wanna leave, he don't.'

The bird croaked, a long, low, reproachful moan, that echoed inside the groundskeeper's hut.

'Merlin,' Isaac shook his head, 'it doesn't sound that happy to be here, does it?'

'It means it's going to rain,' Edward Fawcett, the Ravenclaw boy, spoke up.

'What?' Isaac jerked his attention across the room to stare at Edward.

Edward swallowed. 'The Augurey. When it cries like that, it means it's going to rain.'

Isaac snorted. 'Whatever.'

'He's right,' Hagrid backed the white-blond boy's assertion. 'People thought it were a death omen for a many a long year. Gave these birds a proper bad press, it did.' He looked up and out of the window. 'Not a surprise it'll be rainin' today, mind.'

A low rumble of thunder echoed overhead.

'Still,' Hagrid continued, 'looks like yeh're all dressed for it, so shall we go meet some creatures?'

'What?' Isaac blinked. 'Now?'

'When do you think?' Theo spoke up. 'Come on, you're not scared of a little bit of rain, are you?'

Isaac took the bait. 'No!' he snapped. 'Why, are you?'

Theo rolled his eyes. 'What are you, six years old or something? What are we going to see, Professor?'

Hagrid beamed. 'Jus' let me put this little feller back in his box…' he lifted the Augurey, still crooning, away from Glyn's lap and fastened the bird back into its cage. 'Righto, if yeh could pair up, and we'll be off in a jiffy. Somethin' special for yeh to see…'

The teacher led the group down a narrow trackway that twisted away behind his cottage and dropped to a narrow ravine, hemmed in on both sides by steep, leaf-littered banks. A flimsy rope bridge stretched a series of thin wooden planks from one side to the other, and a dozen feet below a flurry of water gushed from rock to rock, bouncing down the ghyll on its way to the Black Lake.

'Yeh'll get the best view from the bridge,' Hagrid pronounced, extending a giant arm in its direction.

'You must be joking,' Greg blinked. 'All of us, on that? It'll never take our weight…'

'Suit yourself,' Hagrid shrugged. 'Yeh'll struggle to see it from here.'

'I'm not scared,' Theo announced, striding towards the narrow bridge. 'Look, there's chains holding it up and all,' he shook a metal lattice attached to a wooden post set into the riverbank.

Greg rolled his eyes. 'I swear he should have been in bloody Gryffindor sometimes,' he murmured.

'I'll go, too,' Benoît spoke up. 'It is like a mountain bridge back home…' he followed Theo into the middle of the structure as it swayed gently from side to side, and Glyn and Isaac followed suit, leaving Greg and Edward on firm ground.

'Go on, if you want to,' Greg offered.

Edward shook his head, slowly.

'It's okay, mate,' Greg stepped to his right, standing next to the Ravenclaw boy as Hagrid strode towards the edge of the valley. 'I don't blame you.'

Edward, nodded a silent acknowledgment, his face pale underneath the fringe of his white-blond hair as Hagrid raised the end of the umbrella that doubled as a concealed wand, aiming it down to the ravine and bubbling the waters below.

' _Est-ce que c'est…'_ Benoît lapsed into his natural French as he noticed the shell of a creature rising from the stream. _'Une trécouche?_ '

'Indeed it is, my boy, indeed it is.' Hagrid beamed as the dome of the creature, a full metre wide, emerged from the bubbling waters.

'What's a trécouche?' Greg whispered to Edward, but the Ravenclaw could only shake his head.

'Where… where did you find it?' Benoît stammered. 'I did not know there were any outside France.'

Hagrid chuckled. 'Oh, there's many a creature in this forest that's a long way from home, my boy. Now, he continued, what can you tell me about this little beauty?'

'They are from the North of France, and Belgium,' Benoît offered. 'The Ardennes forest. They live in streams, and in caves, and they feed on children and fishermen if they get too close.'

'So it's dangerous?' Isaac checked.

'Not if yeh're up here, and he's down there,' Hagrid observed. 'And besides, he'd never attack a big group of people like us. One of many reasons you do not come to the forest on your own!'

Greg shuddered. 'He doesn't need to convince me about that,' he murmured.

'Me neither,' Edward acknowledged.

'Now have a look closely, boys,' Hagrid continued as the creature lifted its shell to reveal a sheath of sharp teeth. 'He's not the friendliest of beasts, I don't think, but we'll see how I get ter know him…' he paused as a crack of thunder echoed overhead, 'but maybe that should be another time.'

'Yeah…' Glyn looked up through the canopy into a darkening sky.

'Come on then, boys,' Hagrid beckoned the second-years. 'Best be gettin' back.' He waited for the little group to step back down from the narrow footbridge, the leaden sky overhead growing heavier with every moment.

'I don't like this,' Theo murmured, slotting in at the back of the line of boys as they wound back down towards Hagrid's Hut. 'I don't like this at all…'

A flash of lightning split the sky, followed by another loud echo of thunder. 'That's right above us…' Greg looked upwards. 'What's the worst place you can be in a lightning storm?'

'Keep down, boys,' Hagrid hissed. 'Low as yeh can, but keep yer hands off the ground.'

The children complied without dissent, falling into a near-silent line as they edged behind the half-giant and followed the zigzag path out of the forest, thunder echoing ahead all the while.

'Well, boys,' Hagrid breathed with relief as the little group emerged from the treeline. 'I hope that hasn't put yeh off magical creatures…'

'No, sir,' Glyn shook his head. 'There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing,' he grinned, reaching out to brace himself against the wire mesh on a cage, and screamed.

Greg swore. 'Glyn! Glyn!'

The Hufflepuff jerked backwards from the metal, cradling the palm of his left hand. 'Ow!' he yelled. 'That's burning!'

'Inside, inside, quickly now,' Hagrid hurried the twelve-year-old into the building, hauling a bucket of cold water from under a worktop and planting it on the floor in front of Glyn. 'In there.'

Glyn nodded, dunking his hand into the water and letting out an involuntary swear word. 'Sorry, Professor…' he murmured.

'Don't you worry, Glyndwr,' the half-giant patted the boy on the shoulder. 'That cage must've been struck by one of them lightning bolts. I'll have ter check if the birds in it are alright.'

Glyn mumbled something unintelligible, wiping a tear away from his right eye with his free hand. 'Why did I have to touch that bloody cage?' he exclaimed. 'Idiot!'

He took a deep breath, lifting his hand away from the pail of water and stretching it open on the table in front of him. The metal had left a burn half an inch long in the palm of his hand, a criss-cross of latticed wires.

Edward coughed on his next breath. 'Glyn…' he stammered. 'Do you think… that looks…that looks a little bit like the Mark of Merlin?'

 **A/N: I *think* I know where this is headed now, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't struggling through serious writer's block through the midst of the story. Part of me wonders whether I almost have too much going on, and can't see the wood for the proverbial trees, lightning strikes or not. Feedback on the current state of play would be appreciated - where does it look like it's going?!**


	16. Lion, Eagle, Badger, Snake

Hagrid's Hut fell silent as Edward's suggestion hung in the cold January air, before Isaac broke the quiet, unable to handle his own ignorance any longer.

'The _what_?' Isaac blinked.

'The Mark of Merlin…' Greg murmured. 'Professor de Beaufort mentioned it in Ancient Runes. Two runes, M and E, on top of each other.'

'Mannaz and Ehwaz,' Edward supplied the symbols' names. 'Myrddin Emrys, Merlin's Welsh name.'

Slowly, Glyn lifted his left hand out of the bucket of water and held it shyly, reluctantly upwards for his friends to see, before turning it around so that he could stare at his own scarred palm, before looking away, hiding his face as he sunk his hand back into the cold water. 'It isn't…' he protested. 'It can't be! I'm NOT!' his face burned as he snapped at the surprised Ravenclaw.

'I'm sorry…' Edward stuttered. 'I didn't mean…' he tailed off, uncertain of what he had said to provoke the other boy.

'Glyn,' Greg whispered. 'It's not his fault. He doesn't know. He wasn't there.'

The Welsh boy's fierce glare softened as he realised the truth of Greg's observation. 'It's okay, Ed,' he murmured. 'Sorry.'

The white-blond boy nodded slowly, his face still showing his obvious confusion. 'I'll go if you want me to,' he offered. 'I know you guys are all friends, and I don't really know any of you…'

'No,' Glyn didn't let the other boy finish. 'You don't have to go. It's alright,' he managed a weak smile.

Greg mirrored the Hufflepuff's grin. 'Yeah,' he nodded, 'and besides, I think this might be the first time that anyone at Hogwarts has made friends with me without falling out with me to begin with.'

Isaac laughed. 'I never thought about it like that before! Didn't that ever worry you, mate?'

Greg shrugged. 'I never really thought about it either,' he admitted, 'and most of it wasn't really _me_ , anyway. It was usually Slytherin,' he tapped his ribs, above where the House crest sat beneath his thick winter coat, 'but that just makes it better that we're all still friends now,' he held out a hand to Edward, who accepted without hesitation, 'and seeing as we're probably stuck here until this storm's over, I guess we should probably tell you the story now. Glyn?'

The Welsh boy nodded. 'You know what happened last summer, yeah?' he asked, continuing as if the question was obvious, before cutting himself off as he realised that Benoît, his own housemate, wouldn't. 'You know the Wild Hunt?'

Benoît blinked, uncertain, before Hagrid's translation put him at ease.

' _La Mesnée d'Hellequin,_ ' the half-giant offered. 'Learned a bit when I was out there with Olympe, I did.'

'They came to the school last summer,' Glyn explained, 'and attacked one of the teachers. Josh Tregeagle's dad. They would have got Josh too, but, but…' he faltered. 'Theo saved him.'

The Slytherin blushed. ' _You_ saved him, Glyn. I just rugby tackled him to the floor. They'd have still got him if you hadn't have been there… and probably me, too.'

Edward's mouth fell open as he heard Theo's candid admission.

'I said I had the blood of Glyndwr,' Glyn's voice cracked. 'Heir of Merlin. Me, Theo, Josh and Neal Kennedy, the seventh-year, we cut our hands and we put our blood together and somehow, _somehow_ it worked, somehow it beat the Hunt, made them go away, and even saved Josh's dad…' he swallowed. 'McGonagall gave me eighty points for it, like I was some kind of hero, but I'm not,' he insisted. 'I don't know why I said it, I don't know why I thought it, I don't know how it worked…' he felt his eyes burning and forced a false smile.

Edward shivered, suddenly all too aware of the deeper meaning behind what he thought had just been an offhand remark. 'I'm sorry,' he offered. 'I wouldn't have said, I never knew…'

'It's okay,' Glyn assured him, 'it's not your fault, but anyway, I can't keep hiding from it all. It's why I'm taking Ancient Runes, to find out more about the Four Elements, Merlin and Glyndwr, and work out what's going on.'

Edward took a deep breath. 'Wow,' he murmured, before remembering what Greg had done a few minutes earlier and offering a tentative hand in the Welsh boy's direction. 'If you want any help…' he managed.

Glyn's smile became genuine. 'Thanks, Ed,' he acknowledged. 'I think I might.'

Even the boys' combined efforts, however, were insufficient to find out any further information on the runes of the Mark of Merlin, and Glyn slammed an old book shut in frustration as the curfew bell echoed across the library.

'Sorry…' Edward offered, tamely.

'It's okay,' Glyn assured the Ravenclaw. 'Thanks for helping.'

Edward managed a short nod. 'Are you going to try again tomorrow?' he asked.

'Probably,' Glyn confirmed, glancing up to a high window as he, Greg and Edward left the library, where the moonlight caught in a scattering of raindrops. 'I guess it will be too wet to do much else. See you at breakfast. Let's start early, just in case.'

Glyn waited for the sound of Edward's footsteps to die away before turning to face Greg. 'We need to use the Room,' the Hufflepuff announced. 'It will be able to show us the right books, won't it?'

Greg nodded, slowly. 'Yeah,' he agreed, 'but what about Ed?'

Glyn blinked. 'What about him?'

'Josh has to agree,' Greg reminded his friend of what the three first-years had agreed the first time they had shown Glyn the Room of Requirement. 'That was the deal me and him made, and I'm sticking to it.' Greg realised how sharp his voice had been as he noticed Glyn edge half a step backwards. 'Sorry, mate, but I promised.'

'It's okay,' Glyn acknowledged. 'I get it. See you tomorrow.'

'See you at breakfast. 7.00.'

Greg knew that Joshua was always one of the earliest risers amongst the Gryffindors, and with that it meant his best chance of catching his friend alone would be early the following morning, whilst the others enjoyed their weekend lie-in.

The twelve-year-old's instincts proved right, and it didn't surprise him that Joshua was one of the only children at his house table come half past six.

'Hey, Josh,' Greg sat down opposite his friend. 'Did you hear what happened to Glyn yesterday?'

The Gryffindor shook his head, and Greg took the opportunity to retell the story of the previous afternoon. 'So he's got that mark, the Mark of Merlin, on his hand, and we tried to find out anything else about it in the library last night, me, Glyn and Ed, but we couldn't find anything…'

'Ed?' Joshua blinked.

Greg nodded. 'Yeah. Edward Fawcett, in Ravenclaw. We met him in Runes.'

Joshua stared back at Greg. 'How much have you told him?' he challenged his friend. 'Have you told him about the Room?'

'No!' Greg snapped. 'Why would I do that?' he glared back at the other boy. 'Don't you trust me?'

'Sorry,' the Gryffindor swallowed. 'I didn't mean it like that.'

'How else could you have meant it?' Greg dismissed the other boy's apology.

'I don't know,' Joshua admitted, and Greg let his gaze soften. 'I never thought you would have told.'

Greg shook his head. 'I promised, didn't I?'

'Yeah…'

'That's what I was going to ask, though,' Greg took a breath before he continued. 'Whether Ed can come to the Room.'

Joshua stared at his friend for a long moment before answering. 'We haven't told anyone else but Glyn,' he noted, 'who saved my dad's life… and now you want to show some Ravenclaw who you never even talked to before this week?'

Glyn swallowed. 'I guess, if you put it like that…' his voice tailed off, 'but Glyn asked, cause so much of the stuff is all in runic, and Ed's good at translating it… that's not enough, is it?'

Joshua shook his head.

Glyn sighed. 'What if he didn't know where it was?' he suggested. 'If we blindfolded him on the way there so he didn't know where he was going before we got there?'

'Can't you just take the book out and show him it?' Joshua countered, irritably. 'Why does he need to go into the room?'

'So what are we going to say to him? Look, here's a book I found that appeared out of nowhere? He's a Ravenclaw, he's not stupid, he'll work out something's going on.'

Joshua shut his eyes, sinking back down onto the wooden bench beside the breakfast table. 'Fine, whatever,' he sulked, 'just tell everyone, see if I care. In fact, why don't I just stand up now and shout it out so that the whole bloody school can hear it?'

'Josh…' Greg reasoned. 'Come on, mate… you know that's not what I meant!' he took a deep breath, stopping himself from pushing his friend any harder. 'Josh, are you alright? Is everything else okay?'

Joshua shuddered. 'What, apart from my dad not trusting me with anything any more?'

'Josh… you can't mean…'

'It's true! Ever since me and Ty told him about seeing Tregeagle. He keeps going on at me about everything, looking through my work to see if he can find anything that makes it look like I'm still trying to _play the bloody hero_. If he found out I knew about the Room…' Joshua shivered. 'He'd make me swear never to go near it again, and get the portraits looking out for me trying to sneak in anyway, I know it.'

'Wow, Josh…' Greg stuttered. 'I'm sorry, mate…' he swallowed. 'Is there anything we... that Ed could do, so that we would know if he gave it away, if he told anyone?

Joshua shook his head. 'There's the Unbreakable Vow…' he tailed off, 'but if you break that then you die…'

'That's probably a bit much,' Greg forced a wary smile, which he was relieved to see Joshua share.

'Yeah,' his friend agreed. 'Okay,' he decided. 'We take him up there blindfold,' he decided, 'and then I'll decide if I want to trust him.'

Greg knew that Glyn had planned on an early start, too, and by the time he had finished his half-plate of sausage and eggs, the Welsh Hufflepuff had joined the end of the table. 'Hey, Glyn,' Greg acknowledged his friend's arrival. 'All good to go,' he filtered his conversation with Joshua into a simple sentence, 'so long as Ed goes blindfold.'

Glyn opened his mouth to argue, only for a short, sharp shake of Greg's head to dissuade him from saying anything more.

'There he is,' murmured Greg, nodding across the hall as the white-blond Ravenclaw entered, alone. 'Glyn, you get his attention, we'll do the rest.'

Glyn grimaced, half-starting to complain for a second time before realising he would have no time to dispute his friends' idea. 'Okay,' he mumbled, getting to his feet. 'This better be alright.'

'It'll be fine,' Greg assured him, taking a deep breath as he and Joshua followed the Hufflepuff across the hall, cutting off Edward's path to his own breakfast table.

'Hi, Greg…'

'Muffliato!' the Slytherin hissed, grabbing hold of Edward's left arm.

'Obscuro!' Josh added. 'Langlock!' he copied Greg, taking hold of the Ravenclaw's other side and leading the defenceless boy away.

'I'm sorry…' Greg whispered. 'Honestly, Ed, I really am. It's just that we need to go somewhere, and it's got to be a total secret.'

Edward opened his mouth, but with his tongue locked against the top of his throat, no sound could come out, and all he could do was look back at Greg with a shocked hurt on his pale face. Greg turned away, grateful for the fact that the conjured bandage was almost certainly concealing the Ravenclaw's tears.

The route from the Great Hall to the Room of Requirement took the boys longer than usual with Edward blindly in tow, but it was still less than ten minutes to seek out the familiar painting that hung opposite its entrance, and for Glyn to pace back and forth to reveal its door.

Greg breathed a sigh of relief as he led Edward through, noticing as he crossed the threshold that his friend had mixed the Room between its library and the games room in which he and Joshua had spent so much time over the summer.

'All together,' Josh held up his wand. 'On three. One, two, three… _Finite Incantatem!_ '

The blindfold fell away from Edward's eyes, showing Greg that his instinct about the other boy's tears had been correct, and the Slytherin looked away guiltily as the Ravenclaw's red-rimmed eyes locked accusingly onto his own.

'I'm sorry, Ed…' Glyn offered, weakly, feeling his own eyes starting to water. 'I know we shouldn't have done that…'

'You agreed to it!' Joshua was the only one of the four boys who wasn't obviously upset. 'You know it's a secret, and this is the only way we could let him in! How do you know you can trust him?'

'J… Josh…' Glyn stammered.

'What?' Joshua raised his voice. 'If he tells anyone, anyone about this, it's your fault!'

'Josh! Shut up!' Glyn bolted upright, suddenly unconcerned by his own damp eyes. 'Did you ever think that maybe this isn't just about whether _you_ can trust him? Maybe it's about whether _he_ can trust you? We must have scared the crap out of him this morning,' he paused, glancing back towards Edward, who nodded, 'and you know what… yeah, actually, this _is_ my fault, cause I should have said no! I should have said it wasn't worth screwing up the chance to be his friend, just because I wanted to find some stupid book about this stupid mark!' Glyn swore, before realising his breathing had begun to hurry and sat back down, turning to face Edward again. 'I'm sorry, Ed,' he repeated. 'This is my fault. I was so desperate to find out about the mark that I never stopped to think about it properly. I get it if you just want to go back to the Great Hall. I get it if you never want to talk to me again.'

Edward shook his head, blinking back a fresh burst of tears, and Glyn found himself feeling even worse.

'It's my fault, too,' Greg lifted his own head to defend his friend. 'It was my idea,' he shivered, 'and I never thought it through, neither. I don't know why I ever thought it would be alright!' he shook his head. 'I'm really sorry, Ed. It's not Glyn's fault. It's mine. Don't blame him. I didn't think about it at all.'

'No,' Joshua offered, haltingly, 'it's my fault just as much,' he swallowed. 'You both said I should trust him,' he took a deep breath, 'but I didn't listen. I didn't think either…' he took a deep breath, steeling himself as he inhaled.

'None of us did,' Greg admitted.

Edward had given up on fighting against his tears, no longer ashamed of his emotions, but he still brushed the back of his arm over his face, blinking a couple of times before he spoke next. 'Where… Where am I…? Where did you bring me?''

'This is the Room of Requirement,' Joshua answered simply. 'Me and Greg discovered it in the summer holidays… it makes itself into exactly what you want it to be.'

'The Room of Requirement?' Edward echoed. 'For real…?'

'You've heard of it?' Greg blinked.

'Yeah,' Edward nodded, hesitantly. 'I read about it. Harry Potter used it to get back into the castle before the Battle of Hogwarts. I never thought…' he tailed off. 'I never thought I'd ever be here…'

'Cool,' Glyn acknowledged, 'and I think the Room does more than just turn into what you _want_ … cause when I opened it today, I was only thinking about the library, not the games room too,' he swallowed. 'I think the Room knew what we had done,' he reddened, 'and so it turned into what we _needed_ , as well.'

Edward brushed his arm across his cheeks again. 'Yeah,' he murmured. 'Greg,' he offered, slowly. 'Yesterday, at Hagrid's, you said nobody had made friends with you without falling out with you first…' he stumbled over his words. 'How come?'

Greg sunk down onto an armchair. 'Lots of reasons,' he admitted. 'Gryffindor, it's obvious. Hufflepuff too. Everyone just looked at my robes and figured I was just a little Death Eater or something. Glyn figured it out really quickly… but not everyone did,' he tried to force a thin smile.

The Ravenclaw nodded, settling nervously onto a chair opposite the Slytherin. He was a little taller than the other second-years, and unlike them had already turned thirteen. His hair hung straight and white-blond over a pale forehead whilst a handful of freckles were scattered across his still-damp cheeks. 'Yeah,' he stuttered, 'but, I mean, how come you still made friends with them anyway? How come you gave them another chance?'

Greg shivered, guessing the thoughts that must have been stumbling through Edward's mind. 'I…' he sighed, 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'I guess I ended up thinking that, no matter how much we'd argued with each other, or got off on the wrong foot,' he looked over to Joshua, 'that it would still be better for both of us if we became friends… and if it counts for anything, Ed, I'm still thinking that right now…'

Edward brushed his face again, managing a shy smile. 'Me too,' he ventured.

'Cool,' Greg acknowledged, standing up to walk the short distance between his chair and Edward's own, holding out his hand for the Ravenclaw to take. 'Glyn?' he asked. 'Josh? You in?'

'Yeah.'

'Yes.'

The other two children reached their own hands out, binding onto Greg and Edward's as the four boys affirmed a tentative fresh start.

None of the four boys could believe their eyes when the Sorting Hat appeared on top of their four-way handshake.

'What... the… ?' Joshua swore badly.

Edward shivered. 'You guys swear a lot,' he murmured.

'Is that a problem?' Joshua challenged the Ravenclaw.

The blond boy shook his head. 'No, it's okay. I'm just not used to it, that's all.'

'Don't worry about it, Ed,' Greg acknowledged his new friend's discomfort. 'I know what you mean. Now,' he changed the subject, 'shall we find out _why_ ,' he swore, glancing at Edward, who reddened, 'the Sorting Hat's just appeared out of nowhere on top of us? I think we've been holding hands for long enough!'

Greg lifted the old leather hat from the remains of the boys' handshake as the four second-years let their hands come apart. 'Who wants to wear it first?'

'I've already had another go, last summer,' Glyn recalled. 'Ed?' he offered.

The Ravenclaw's face turned even more pale, but he steeled himself to agree with the Welsh boy's suggestion. 'Alright,' he managed. 'Go on.'

Edward took the Hat from Greg's hands, lifting it slowly over his head.

'Ask your questions out loud,' Greg suggested, 'I mean, if you want to…'

'Why… why are you here?' Edward tried to hold his voice level as he spoke, but he couldn't keep it from faltering entirely. 'Oh… I get it. Thanks.'

The other boys saw a smile stretch across Edward's lips before the Ravenclaw gently removed the Hat, placing it respectfully on the arm of his chair. 'Do you remember what it said on the first day of term?' the thirteen-year-old asked. 'At the sorting? About splitting us into Houses being wrong, because it makes us fight each other instead of against real evil,' he took a breath. 'Well, today is the first time that one person from each house has ever done something like that.'

'Wow…' Glyn looked round the small group of boys. 'I never even thought about it like that,' he admitted, turning to face Greg. 'I don't look at you and Josh and see Gryffindor or Slytherin any more. I just see my friends.'

Greg sighed. 'I wish you weren't the only one who thought like that.'

'I'm not the only one,' Glyn protested.

'Yeah,' Joshua backed the Hufflepuff. 'Glyn's right. Look at the first-years, Morgan and Tom and Ty. That wouldn't have happened last year,' he insisted. 'I know it's not perfect, mate, but remember what we said. By the time we're prefects it really won't matter.'

Edward nodded. 'You're not like how I thought Gryffindors and Slytherins were going to be,' he observed, taking a breath. 'The Hat said something else as well,' he continued, 'it said that all of us had bits of all four Houses inside of us, and there were times when we needed to use each different one…' he took a deep breath, 'like today, when I had to use my little bit of Gryffindor to stay here when all the rest of me wanted to run away,' he blushed, furiously.

'I don't blame you, Ed,' Greg acknowledged. 'I think I would have run away if it was me.'

The colour faded from Edward's cheeks, and a smile emerged in its place. 'Thanks, Greg.'

'Who's next, then?' Glyn turned the group's attention back to the Sorting Hat. 'Greg, your go.'

The Slytherin knew he couldn't refuse. 'Fine,' he accepted his friend's suggestion, placing the Hat carefully over his own head before his view of the Room of Requirement faded to black as the brim slid past his eyes.

'Good morning, Mr Bennett,' the Hat greeted him, 'and a surprise to see you, too,' it read his mind. 'There is very little that will bring me forth from the Headmistress' Office.'

'We didn't mean to,' he apologised. 'Sorry if we disturbed you.'

The Hat laughed. 'No, not at all. I doubt you could have summoned me had you tried: only genuine co-operation between the four Houses can do as much. Anything contrived would have been fruitless.'

'Okay,' Greg stumbled, his voice slowly returning. 'So… what you said at the feast? Is it really true? Are we really in danger?'

'Mr Bennett,' the Hat's reply trilled, 'you are an intelligent boy. You have seen enough magic by now to know it can be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. It is foolish to imagine otherwise, and more dangerous still to assume that the colour of a tie is much more than that.'

Greg swallowed. 'Is… is there anything else you need to tell me?'

'I think you will find that everything else you need to know is closer at hand than you think.'

'Thank you… I think.' Greg lifted the Hat off his head, holding it out to Joshua, who sat under the old relic for several minutes before taking it off.

'I asked it about my dad,' he admitted, 'and the Wild Hunt, and his magic,' he exhaled. 'I don't think it knows any more than we do… I mean, how could it?' he shook his head. 'It also said that if I don't trust people to help me then I might miss the one who might make a difference.' He looked apologetically over at Edward, who nodded.

'Your go, then, Glyn,' Greg offered, gesturing towards the tattered Hat. 'The rest of us have been.'

Glyn reached out reluctantly, lifting the Hat before setting it onto his head as a determined expression crossed his face. It took all of the twelve-year-old's courage to keep that calmness as he removed the Hat to repeat its message a couple of minutes later. 'There's a prophecy…' he stammered. 'About me.' Glyn took a deep breath, steadying himself to repeat the Hat's words. ' _When under Glyndwr's banner the houses unite, then from Llyn Barfog shall the Afanc take flight.'_

The other three children stared blankly back at their friend. The Afanc?' Greg echoed.

'It's a water monster,' Glyn confirmed, 'and I know Llyn Barfog,' he added. 'It's near Aberdyfi, not that far from Harlech.'


	17. Royal Blood

Iestyn Jones shot bolt upright in bed, his breathing short and hurried and a ring of sweat around his neck. The nine-year-old looked around, registering the fact that he was still in his bedroom, and let himself drop back down onto his sheets. He hadn't slept properly since his older brother had returned to Hogwarts, not now that he knew what had happened the previous year, and how close Glyn had come to perishing at the hands of the Wild Hunt. With the memory of the Kelpie at his own school the previous term still uncomfortably fresh in his mind, Iestyn's subconscious had a habit of mixing the stories together, threatening the Welsh boy, his friends or family. Iestyn had grown used to broken sleep, but he hadn't mentioned it to anybody: he had turned nine over the Christmas holidays, and in his own mind he wasn't a little boy any more.

School life offered him little respite. Glyn had challenged his younger brother to get to know Llywelyn Tudur, a new arrival at the muggle primary school in the coastal town of Harlech, and a boy who had shown precious little willing to make friends with the other children in Dosbarth Pedwar, the Welsh language name for Iestyn's Class Four.

'Come on then, children,' Miss Williams called her primary school class to attention as they filtered in from a long lunch break. 'Down on the carpet now. Time for us to start our new project work.'

Iestyn took a deep breath, watching his classmates filter haphazardly across the little room and into the cramped space in the far corner. The nine-year-old took a couple of sideways steps away from his teacher, letting his classmates fill the old carpet before he chose one of the last places to be left vacant, slipping in alongside the blond-haired Llywelyn. He looked across the carpet to a pair of muggle boys, squabbling over which of them sat closest to a particular worn-out section of fabric, and shook his head. That kind of concern seemed a distant memory to Iestyn now.

'Well, children,' Miss Williams continued. 'Our topic this term is one that always seems to be popular with Pedwar, not least because our little town of Harlech plays such an important role in the story. Can anyone tell me what story I'm talking about?'

Iestyn scanned the gathered children for a sign that one of the others might offer an answer.

'Anyone?' Miss Williams asked again.

Iestyn sighed, slowly lifting his left hand to show that he knew. He would have preferred it if one of his classmates had answered, but he wasn't prepared to let the teacher think that her class knew so little about the history of their country that it risked the term's topic being reduced to a simplistic summary. 'The Glyndwr Rising,' he offered, 'and the last true Prince of Wales.'

Miss Williams smiled. 'I thought you might know, Iestyn, with your brother being named for him.'

'Named,' the nine-year-old thought to himself, 'and everything else…'

'We will of course look at Owain Glyndwr, his siege of Harlech… one of many… and his parliament in Machynlleth, but our topic is not just about our fine castle. It goes much further afield and further back in time than that. We're learning about the history of Wales, and we start right back at the beginning, with the story of Y Ddraig Goch, the Red Dragon…'

The collection of eight- and nine-year-olds fell quiet as their teacher took them back in time to the fifth century, and the foundation of the Welsh kingdoms in the aftermath of the crumbling Roman Empire. Vortigern, the leader of a Celtic tribe, pushed back into North Wales by Saxon invaders, sought to build a stronghold on a hill outside what is now the town of Beddgelert, a dozen miles to the north of Harlech. Despite the royal craftsmen's best efforts, all of their work on the towers of the castle would crumble overnight, and the King summoned his council of wise men to explain what was happening.

The wise men told Vortigern to find a boy without a father, born to a Welsh woman, and to sacrifice him at the construction site. A boy was found in the town of Carmarthen, and brought to Vortigern, but when he was presented to the king for the sacrifice, he showed that he knew far more than the wise men.

The orphan boy knew that, buried deep beneath the hillside, there was a platform and a pool where two dragons had been imprisoned. Within that pool, the red dragon of Wales fought against a foreign white dragon, and it was their battle that brought Vortigern's castle crashing down.

Once the workmen dug down into the hill, they found exactly what the boy had foretold, and the two dragons' fight spilled out into the countryside. It looked for all the world as if the white dragon was winning the day, only for the Welsh red to find a second wind and send the invader packing, once and for all. With the dragons calmed, Vortigern could construct his great castle, and he named the stronghold for the boy who had solved his problem. Dinas Emrys was named after Myrddin Emrys, the boy who would go on to be known worldwide as Merlin.

Iestyn's attention, which had drifted as he heard the teacher retell a story he already knew, snapped back to the classroom. 'Maybe it's just a coincidence?' he murmured, under his breath, before shaking his head as he remembered what his brother had told him over the Christmas break. 'It's never just a coincidence…'

'What happened to the dragons?' another boy asked.

'Well,' Miss Williams answered, 'the white dragon fled, never to return, but legend has it that the red dragon returned to its lair, fast asleep but ready to reawaken in Wales' hour of need.'

'What kind of dragons were they?' Iestyn's head snapped left as Llywelyn spoke. Miss Williams had already described the two beasts as white and red dragons respectively, and as the teacher repeated her answer, Iestyn saw the blond boy shrink back against the cupboard door behind him.

'No, I mean, where were they from…' Llywelyn tailed off as a weak pulse of laughter scattered around the carpet, amused by the boy's strange question.

'Dragons aren't real, Llywelyn!' another nine-year-old teased. 'It's just a story.'

Almost without thinking about it, Iestyn reached out a calming hand to rest on the other boy's shoulder. 'Miss Williams,' he offered, 'you said the white dragon was foreign. Do you think the story is about Wales fighting back against English invaders?' he paused.

The teacher nodded. 'That's an excellent idea, Iestyn,' she smiled, 'I've never really thought about it like that.'

Iestyn felt Llywelyn's shoulder shiver beneath his hand. 'That's what I think it's about,' he added, suddenly determined to see just how much national pride there was in his class, 'and even if it isn't,' he corrected himself, 'then I bet Owain Glyndwr believed it, and so did Prince Llywelyn…' he hesitated, looking down at the blond boy beside him. 'Were you named after him?' he asked. 'Cool…'

Iestyn wrote to his brother a couple of days later, letting him know how he had tried to be more friendly to Llywelyn, and how the other boy had whispered his gratitude later that day. The nine-year-old was still a long way from finding anything out about the Sons of Glyndwr, but he was closer than he had been before his teacher had mentioned the story of Dinas Emrys and the orphan boy.

Back at school, meanwhile, the second-years had made similarly little progress. 'There's nothing,' Glyn snapped, slamming a book shut at the end of another unprofitable morning in the Room of Requirement. The four boys who knew about the room had agreed to meet there weekly, hunting down anything they could find about the Mark of Merlin or the legendary Afanc, but had turned up nothing beyond what Glyn already knew. 'I swear I have checked every book on Welsh creatures in here now.'

Greg nodded. 'At least we will be ready for our Defence mid-term,' he reasoned. Professor Jenkins had told them that they would be having a short practical test in the coming week, checking that they were able to handle the threats they had learned about so far. It was a test that, as Greg had expected, caused little trouble for the second-year boys, but not every pupil found it quite so straightforward.

The second-years returned to the dungeon later that week to find a group of younger boys gathered around one of the fireplaces, heads down in serious discussion.

'Hey,' Theo called across the room. 'You guys alright? What's up?'

'Uh,' Tyler, who seemed to spend more time in the Slytherin dungeon than in his own tower, looked sharply upwards. 'Nothing.'

Greg laughed. 'You're a rubbish liar, Ty,' he pointed out, dropping his bag by the doorway and heading over to join the first-years. 'I guess that's why you're not really a Slytherin…'

'Shut up, Greg,' the eleven-year-old groaned.

'What is it, then?' the older boy persisted.

'Jenkins' test,' Tyler admitted. 'Dean failed.'

Greg blinked. 'Dean?'

'The other Gryffindor,' Tyler described.

'Oh…' Theo joined the group of boys. 'I know the one you mean. The really quiet one with ginger hair?'

Tyler nodded.

'What happened? Did he forget to speak?'

Tyler glared back at the second-year.

'I'm just saying,' Theo tried to justify himself, 'if I managed to pass, how hard could it have been…?' he swallowed, realising he was only digging himself into a deeper hole. 'Sorry.'

Tyler held his gaze for a few drawn-out seconds before letting out a long breath. 'He won't say,' he admitted. 'I know he doesn't talk much, but…' Tyler sighed.

'He's never been down in the dungeons, has he?' Greg checked. 'So he's never done any extra practice like the rest of you did?'

'How come he's never been down here?' Theo followed up his friend's question.

'We've asked him loads of times,' Thomas offered, 'but he's always said no.'

'Maybe this will make a difference,' Morgan suggested, 'or maybe it won't,' he shook his head. 'Were all your tests the same, Greg?'

The second-year paused to think for a moment. 'Almost,' he decided, 'but not quite. I think we had to do pretty much the same spells but we didn't all have to face the same creature. I had a Grindylow…'

'I had a Water Leaper,' Theo interrupted. 'I'm never going to forget Diffindo…'

'Ours were pretty much the same,' Morgan explained. 'How to duel, basic defensive spells, and then an imp, or a gnome, or some doxies…' he sighed. 'Nothing that he should have failed on. He's one of the best in the class.'

'Did he say what creature he got?' Theo asked.

'He didn't say anything,' Tyler admitted. 'He just went straight back to our dorm and drew his curtains…'

'Well, that's probably where you should start,' Greg suggested.

'Yeah,' Thomas blushed. 'Nothing good comes from lying in your bed and sulking. Trust me on that.'

Tyler nodded. 'After supper,' he murmured, getting to his feet. 'I'll see you there.'

Dean Collins took plenty of persuading to go along with the Slytherins' plan, but with Joshua's encouragement the first-year reluctantly agreed to head to Professor Jenkins' office at the end of his meal.

Tyler led the way, with Morgan and Thomas following on just behind the other Gryffindor. Dean was a little taller than the other boys, with short, straight red hair and the typical scattering of freckles that usually accompanied his complexion, and as Tyler had admitted, he was not the most talkative of children. That was one of the reasons why the blond boy decided he would be the one to knock on the professor's office door, set back on the far side of the Defence classroom.

'Sir…?' the eleven-year-old called. 'Professor Jenkins…'

'Coming, coming,' a voice answered back, pulling the latch open. 'Yes, Mr Barton?'

'Hi, Sir,' Tyler acknowledged the teacher, before hesitating, realising he had little idea what he genuinely needed to ask. 'I just… I just wanted to know, about the tests today, if we failed them, what happens? What difference does it make? Do we have to leave Hogwarts?'

'Mr Barton,' the teacher cut him off. 'A strange question to ask, given that you passed with flying colours.' He pulled the old oak door wider, setting his eyes on Tyler's company. 'Ah,' he noticed Dean. 'Mr Collins.'

The redhead edged backwards, away from the man's glare, only to collide into the twin arms of Morgan and Thomas, who grabbed the other boy before he could think of turning to run.

'That's why we're here, Sir,' Morgan explained, and the professor nodded.

'Very good,' he took a pace backwards. 'Well, I suppose you had better come in.'

Tyler followed the man's instructions, crossing the threshold without hesitation, before turning to watch the two Slytherin boys all but carry Dean into the professor's quarters and over to a long sofa.

'Sit down, mate,' Thomas hissed in Dean's ear, before settling himself down between the two Gryffindors and his own housemate.

'Well, Mr Collins,' Jenkins repeated the other boy's name.

Dean shivered.

'Mr Collins?' The teacher shook his head. 'You do not appear to have learned anything from this morning.'

'Dean,' Tyler leant across, whispering to his friend. 'What happened…?'

The redhead's eyes began to water. 'I don't know what it was…' he admitted. 'I did all the spells and things fine, and then this, this thing appeared, and I didn't know what to do…'

The teacher nodded. 'So what did you do?'

'Dean…?' Tyler broke the silence that followed.

'I didn't…' his head dropped into his hands. 'I didn't do anything.'

'Mr Collins,' Professor Jenkins got to his feet. 'You are one of the top students, perhaps the top student in my class, when it comes to theoretical defence, but theoretical defence will not save you from Dark Magic. This is why I wanted you to face a Gwyll,' his Welsh accent rolled around the "ll" at the end of the name, making a "th" sound.

'Your challenge is not the same as the one facing your classmates. The muggle-borns have a world of magic to which they must become accustomed, and Mr Fitch here is battling the ghosts of his family name.'

Thomas jolted backwards in his seat. 'W… what?' he stammered. 'How do you... I mean, what do you…'

'Mr Fitch,' Jenkins peered down at the eleven-year-old. 'I was working in the Auror Office for the duration of the First and Second Wars. It would be most remiss of me if I was not aware of your family history,' he took a deep breath, 'but that is not why we are here. Mr Collins, your friends all have their own challenges, but they are each learning their own ways of facing them. That is what you must do, too.'

Dean inched his head back upwards. 'Sir…' he murmured. 'What… what was that? The Gwyll?'

'A Gwyll,' Jenkins explained, 'is a spirit creature from the mountains of Snowdonia, in North Wales.'

Morgan and Thomas shared a second's glance at the professor's mention of Glyn's homeland, but the teacher didn't notice.

'It is a brooding, mysterious creature, and few wizards have ever made it their business to study them. It feeds off confusion and disorientation, often drawing its succour from lost travellers, drawn off course by its lantern-like apparition,' he paused. 'A real danger to life in the highlands and the dark, but no threat whatsoever in the classroom.'

Dean's pale complexion hurried red. 'I, I, didn't know…'

'I know you didn't,' Jenkins emphasised, 'and that, Mr Collins, was precisely the point. What happens when you face the unknown?'

'Can I face it again?' the eleven-year-old asked.

Jenkins blinked, momentarily caught off guard by the boy's question. 'Well, no reason why not, I suppose… give me one moment…'

The teacher turned, heading through a low door at one side of the office, and Tyler grabbed his housemate's arm as the man let the door bounce shut behind him.

'Dean,' the blond boy hissed, 'did you mean now…? How are you going to beat it?'

There was no time for the other Gryffindor to reply, however, as the professor had returned to the main quarters of his office, a wooden crate in his hands.

'Mr Collins,' the teacher planted the box down on a wide coffee table, before loosening a pair of iron catches and sliding a side panel upwards. 'Over to you.'

Dean drew his wand, getting to his feet as a translucent, wraith-like spectre floated up from the open crate and hovered in front of the eleven-year-old. 'I'm not afraid,' he murmured, staring at the spirit. 'You can't do anything to me.'

'I do not need to,' the Gwyll's voice was high-pitched, almost melodic and hypnotic in equal measures. 'If you are your own worst enemy.'

Dean hesitated, his wand still levelled at the Gwyll, only for the spirit to levitate higher and peer beyond him to the other first-years. 'What are you doing…?'

'I have but little interest in you, child,' its voice chimed back, 'not when there is royal blood so close behind you.'

'Royal… what?' Dean gasped, watching the Gwyll float over him and pause above the other first-years' sofa, and shifting into song in a language that none of the children recognised. Even without knowing any of the words, however, the boys were entranced by the melody, caught out of time as the spirit hovered ever lower, before Dean shattered the trance with a deafening yell. 'Lumos maxima!'

A flash of white light burst from the tip of the Gryffindor's wand, filling the room and forcing the spectral form of the Gwyll up and away from the other boys.

'Lumos duo,' Thomas was the first of the three to get to his feet, aiming his own wand at the spirit and holding it fast in a thick beam of wand light before driving it back towards its crate. 'Now shut it in,' the Slytherin commanded, and Dean didn't need telling twice. 'What the hell…' the certainty in Thomas' voice evaporated as he turned to the teacher. 'Professor?'

Jenkins shook himself. 'Excellent work, Mr Collins, Mr Fitch. Five points apiece. That should make up for this morning, don't you think?' he clapped his hands, making towards the children and directing them towards his office door.

'Professor Jenkins,' Thomas repeated, his voice growing clearer again, 'what happened, Sir? What did it mean, royal blood?'

The teacher shook his head. 'Gwyllion say and do all kinds of things to distract their victims. I wouldn't give it a moment's thought if I were you.'

'But…' Thomas continued to protest, even as he was reversed out of the room, the door closing in front of his face. Slowly, the eleven-year-old turned round to face his friends. 'Did that really just happen to us?'

'Yeah…' Dean nodded. 'Thanks for helping me get it back in its cage,' he murmured.

'It's okay,' the Slytherin acknowledged, 'thanks for fighting it off to begin with.' Thomas took a deep breath, shaking his long fringe back behind his ears. 'Who do you think it was talking about when it said royal blood?'

Morgan shrugged. 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'It doesn't make sense to be any of us. Ty and me are both muggle born, and you… you'd know, wouldn't you?'

Thomas nodded, slowly. 'Yeah,' he agreed. 'We should tell the others,' he decided. 'Dean,' he looked the redhead in the eye, 'come on, mate. You're part of this now. Come down to the dungeons with us. Come and face the unknown,' he echoed Jenkins' words.

Dean bit his bottom lip, glancing from Thomas' face to Morgan and Tyler and back again, before nodding his head and accepting the Slytherin's offer. 'Okay.'

The second-year Slytherin boys were sitting together in their usual place in the common room, gathered around a long, low table and comparing notes on their homework.

'Greg!' Morgan called across the room. 'Theo!'

The twelve-year-olds looked up.

'Morgan?' Greg blinked.

'You'll never believe what just happened,' the first-year announced. 'We went to Jenkins' office, like you said we should, and he brought the Gwyll out for Dean to face again…'

'Gwyll?' Greg cut the younger boy off.

'Oh,' Morgan paused, 'it's a kind of Welsh mountain ghost.'

'Welsh…' Isaac remarked, 'again.'

Greg sighed. 'Go on, Morgs.'

The eleven-year-old gathered himself, taking a deep breath before continuing. 'Jenkins brought the Gwyll back out, and it was going for Dean… but then, then it said it wasn't interested in him when there was royal blood so close, and it came for us instead.'

'Came for you?' Theo blinked. 'Who?'

'We don't know,' Tyler answered. 'It sort of hovered above the three of us, above me, Morgan and Tom, but then Dean fought it off…'

Greg whisked. 'Ty,' he murmured, 'remember during the holidays?' he asked, 'When you saw Tregeagle?'

The first-year turned pale, but nodded.

'What was it that he said?'

'He said,' Tyler swallowed, 'he said, the blood of your enemy sleeps within the castle.' The eleven-year-old exhaled. 'Do you think, do you think that might have something to do with it?'

Greg shrugged. 'I have no idea,' he admitted. 'Tregeagle didn't mention anything about royalty, did he Ty?'

The Gryffindor shook his head.

'Morgan,' Lucas interrupted, which was unusual, and the other boys turned to face their quiet friend. 'Do you know anything about your dad?'


End file.
